I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?' So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. – M. Cole

We’re going to the Reason Rally in DC this year. I’m hoping for much nicer weather than last time, where it was quite wet. No ark needed though. It looks to be a good time for those who support secular causes.

As for the Reason Rally, it seems some Christians will be there to try to convert people (just google Christian reason rally). Mr. Banana in his hand himself, Ray Comfort will supposedly be there, and will spend $25,000 to show how his god fails by trying to get people to take his book by offering Subway (the sandwich shop, not the Metro) gift cards. There will be 5000 of them, just so you can catch the bible reference.

Thank you Ray, for showing that your god doesn’t exist and can’t do anything at all. It takes lots of humans from farmers to folks making minimum wage to feed 5,000 people. No god at all needed or in evidence at all. I guess poor Ray isn’t a true believer in JC since he can’t do miracles as promised in the bible. It doesn’t say feed the hungry specifically in that verse but if one can heal, why not a little work with the loaves and fishes? Of course, healing would be good too. How about helping the vets at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? It’s just up the road. But one can be sure that these suggestions will be either ignored or met with indignant claims of how dare an atheist require Christians be able to support their claims.

It’s great to see Ray using this money to show off, and not giving it to an organization that could use it, oh, like a food pantry in DC. Such classic TrueChristian nonsense. One can also guarantee that he will inflate his book sales number with the ones he is trying to give away. Ray is doing a wonderful job of using bread and circuses to try to convert people.

It’s wonderful to see that he is sure that just his religious claims won’t work. He needs a bribe.

Addendum: 05/30/2016

It seems that Mr. Comfort thought he could have his people show up at the Mall and not have to apply for a permit to do his attempt to convert atheists.

This means he supposedly has all of these gift cards.

What is his solution?

““In what is so often a cruel world, we tried to show a little kindness and it didn’t work. So it now looks like we will be eating Subway sandwiches for the next 40 years.“

Yup, ol’ Ray even now can’t think of actually helping out people for real. He’ll just keep his $25,000 for himself.

(update: Comfort has emailed Hemat Mehta and has now said that the cars are going to the homeless. Funny how it takes him to be publically shamed to come up with this).

You may ask how much it costs to get a permit. “The permit systems helps assure that the large amount of events that may be taking place on any given day will not conflict with each other and with general visitor activities. All application, unless determined to be a First Amendment activity, must be accompanied by a payment for initial processing. The application processing cost is

$120 for public gathering/ special event applications

$90 for special use applications.

The application processing cost represents the average costs incurred by the park in mailing, distribution and initial review of applications to make sure the information supplied is sufficient to inform a decision. Payment of application cost may be in the form of check, money order or credit card.” https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/permitsandreservations.htm

Hi there John. Nice to see you slinking back. Pity you can’t answer my questions.

So, we have Comfort showing that he can’t do miracles as all supposed baptized believers in JC should be able to do. We also know that you can’t do these miracles either. So, is your bible wrong when it makes such claims?

If Comfort’s claims were so convincing, why the need for a sandwich to sweeten the deal?

Whether I’m a Christian only matters to people who spend 90% of their time reading things like, “How to Debate with Christians.”

Of course, I understand the predicament. In order to have any type of conversation about beliefs, SOMEBODY has to actually say something… So people who claim “Non-Belief” need to get the other person to make a statement as quickly as possible. (Then they can tear it apart! Yay!)

But I’m not interested in giving you something to tear apart.

Does it bother you, needing to borrow from other people’s beliefs before you have anything to contribute at all?

First you need to clarify what you are talking about. What is being “borrowed”? As it stands you are making a vague accusation.

As JB has done, you have done your best to make false claims about my post. Ray Comfort has said that he is giving away gift cards to get people to take his book and to convert them. This is not a free giveaway, there is a requirement to receive a gift card.

Now, let’s compare that action with what is actually a free giveaway. If one is hungry, one can get food at a food pantry. The one that works where I live, the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, doesn’t require people to take proseltyzing material to get help, they also do not need to bribe people to get help or to help them by donations.

We have the bible that says that using bribes is not a good idea. We also have Ray’s actions showing that he requires humans to provide food for his bribes, e.g. that he as a baptized believer in JC cannot do the miracles promised. He cannot heal humans as promised, which could be very much used up at Walter Reed AMC.

So, we are left with some problems with the claims made. Is Ray Comfort a Christian as described in the bible? The evidence says not. This can also be applied to JB and yourself and every other Christian since evidence cannot be supply to support the biblical claim. IF the message is so good, why is there a need of bribes? In the bible, it doesn’t seem that JC needed bribes unless one wants to include the events of the loaves and fishes. There’s also a problem with this claim since the gathering of a roman legion’s worth of men (plus women and children) outside a occupied city would be notable by the Romans and no one noticed at all. From the bible, one of the better verses is where JC says that one should help the less fortunate without consideration. Matthew 6 and Matthew 23 would seem to indicate that Ray Comfort is definitely not on the side of the “angels”.

It’s not about one bible verse at all. It is about many verses and why they are problematic since the claims fail. Again, I have no idea how you are using the word “borrowing”. It seems you are confusing it with the process of analyzing claims.

Nothing is more frustrating for a comedian than the sour-faced man in the center of the room—arms folded—with an obvious “Make Me Laugh” attitude. No matter how good the entertainer, if someone is determined to remain unimpressed, there will be no convincing them otherwise.

Similarly, no parent/teacher can force a small child to eat his breakfast. Believe me—I’ve seen it attempted hundreds of times. A mother of a former student in my daycare used to bring her son in every morning with the same, worried look on her face, complaining: “He only ate, like, two bites of his cereal at home! So I brought a PopTart and a banana with us. Could you please make sure he eats it?” Then, she would set her son up at the table and plead. “Please eat! Come on, eat a bite for Mommy! You’ll be hungry!”

No matter how many times I told her that the boy wasted everything she ever left for him–no matter how many times I suggested that he would eat if he were hungry–(and no matter how many times I suggested he actually likes the attention he gets from her begging), she still put on the same show every day. She was sure it was her job to bribe him into eating…

But you CAN’T make someone eat or laugh.

And you certainly can’t make them read.

So, I think you and I agree about Ray Comfort.

I wouldn’t personally go as far as he does, begging people to accept help when they don’t want it.

I’d say, “Fine. Starve and burn, you idiot.”

Maybe I need to work on that…

Or maybe it’s actually the most Christlike thing to do. (Matt. 10:14) Philosophers and Theologians have been debating that for centuries…
—-
Anyway, I won’t have a conversation about the Bible with True Atheists. It’s tedious to keep being put on trial by someone who “has no” beliefs.

That’s why I decided to play the role of a skeptic/Atheist myself.

Skeptics don’t have to defend themselves–ever. All they have to do is ask questions of OTHER PEOPLE, and then say, “That’s not evidence!” when they get a response.

It’s fun.

And it’s way easier than building a case for yourself.

The only trouble is, you keep bringing up specific verses in the Bible and asking me to defend my inability to heal people who don’t really believe I can heal them in the first place. That’s exactly what I was talking about with my question! You try turning EVERYTHING into a discussion about the OTHER PERSON’S beliefs.

Did you notice you do that?

So, I just wanted to know whether it’s frustrating that “non”-belief is dependent on there being “belief” in the first place? You have to ask people which side they’re on before you can deliver your rehearsed lines–because you have nothing constructive to offer on your own. Only destruction! Is it frustrating to not to have anything to teach people who are on the fence, other than “At least my perspective is better than being a stupid Christian!”?

MMM, It’s most curious that you seem to want to draw analogies between things that aren’t alike. A comedian isn’t saying his claims are true, he is working for an emotional response from the crowd. He does not have to show his claims are true since they don’t go much beyond the theatre. There’s also the problem that the comedian might just be really bad and wants to blame the audience for “not getting it”. He’s just not funny, a subjective reaction. He might be frustrated and the only fault remains with him. Now, I’m guessing you are trying to make the analogy that atheists just are refusing to be impressed, rather than what is true, that atheists see that you have no evidence to support your religion and you disbelieve in other religions for the same reasons we do.

Then you try again with parents and children. The analogy you are trying for here eludes me, but I’m going to guess it is an attempt to claim you god isn’t trying to “force” anyone to take his nonsense. This is shown be wrong by the claims of the bible and the actions of Christians (and other theists).

I don’t believe at all that one can’t make someone read. It certainly happens every day in schools everywhere. I have no idea where you pulled that baseless claim from. No idea why Comfort thinks giving a sandwich away witwh a book will convince people to read, but I’m guessing its his projection of his own feelings of guilt; it’s a transaction and he thinks other must obey what he thinks he should get in return. Since I’m going to the RR, I am going to go up to his little posse and ask for a gift card. It will be an interesting experiment to see what happens next.

You’ve repeated the typical Christian nonsense, that Comfort is just offering help. Help from what? A god you can’t show exists? A hell that you can’t show exists? It’s a pity when you try to cast yourselves into supposed “heroes” but you are no more impressive than the fireman who is an arsonist, inventing a problem that you can be adulated for “saving” people from. So, no, MMM, it doesn’t seem we agree about Comfort at all.

No, please don’t work on what you honestly think. I’m glad that you say “fine, starve and burn you idiot”. It’s a great example of what many Christians think, despite their claims that they love everyone ever-so much. It shows that your claims aren’t true. Of course, there are Christians who are decent humane human beings who don’t get off on sadistic fantasies of hell. This difference shows that the belief does nothing to indicate an objective morality or a god that supposedly supplies it.

Thanks or pointing out that there is no coherence in your holy book. We get Matt 10: 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” And then we get the command to go everywhere and evangelize no matter what disinterest and threats from Paul. Hmmm, who to believe…. Yep, theologians and philosophers have been debating the contradictions in the bible, and in other religions for years. It’s called apologetics, and again shows that there is no reason to think that any theist has any magical truth.

I’m sure you find it to be “tedious” to be shown that your claims aren’t true, MMM by someone, perhaps a true atheist, who was a Christian, who has read the bible and who knows it better than most folks, including Christians. It does seem that you have no problem in having a conversation here, though. Hmmm.

Nice lies, MMM, to claim that skeptics don’t have to defend themselves “ever”. You are more than welcome to question me. But it seems that you don’t want to for some reason, I’m guessing since I do produce evidence and it doesn’t look good when you cannot. You apparently want to cast aspersions and play the poor suffering martyr. But nice strawman construction. Terribly sad that you can’t show it to be true. I’m more than happy to build a case for my points and have. It doesn’t work well in a written medium to claim something doesn’t exist when it’s a few paragraphs up.

Oh, this is absolutely lovely.

“The only trouble is, you keep bringing up specific verses in the Bible and asking me to defend my inability to heal people who don’t really believe I can heal them in the first place.”

It’s not the failure of the bible’s promise “16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Nor is it the failure of MMM to be a true Christian. She can’t do what she’s promised, so it’s the fault of those she would really heal honest, if they would only “really” believe. I’m sure we can find some people who are Christians at Walter Reed AMC, or at any VA hospital near you. Yep, it is about others beliefs and the lies those people tell. You’ve done a great job underlining that, MMM. Your excuses are exactly what any charlatan offers when their claims are questioned.

Christians and their holy book have made the positive claims, MMM. Now it’s time to support those claims. It’s time to show that it’s a good thing for Ray Comfort to waste $25,000 to try to get people to take his book when his supposed religion says that offering bribes is wrong and that helping people without bellowing it to the world is what one should do. He tried his best last time making tracts look like money to get people to take them and get relatively attractive young women to give out his dvd. It’s rather like the classic insult “so ugly that his mom had to tie a steak around his neck to get the dog to play with him”. I have no problem in pointing out the hypocrisy in people who claim to have some ultimate truth. Yep, it is about the other person’s beliefs if their beliefs make them harmful.

So, yes, MMM, I’ll talk about your beliefs and point out your ignorance and your hypocrisy. You do your best to tell me to sit down and shut up. That doesn’t work.
Nope, it’s not frustrating in the least that non-belief is dependent on belief, since it isn’t dependent on it at all. Since children don’t have any idea of a god until they are taught, non-belief doesn’t depend on belief at all. I don’t need to ask people what “side” they are on; their actions are all I need to point out that they are hypocrites and that their claims don’t match with their holy book or other Christians. I have plenty constructive to offer on my own; your opinion doesn’t matter. Oh, and there is the Christian attempt to claim that anything that counters their claims is somehow “destruction”. It is indeed destruction of false claims made by you. But there is plenty of construction when humans leave religious nonsense behind. Happily, most humans don’t believe in God’s wrath causing disease anymore, so we have modern medicine. Most humans don’t believe that slavery is good and that slaves should never try to leave their masters, so we have much more freedom and human rights. Most humans have left behind the idea that anyone who doesn’t agree with them should be murdered. Quite a bit better than your religion.

Since I have plenty to teach other than your rather silly attempts at loaded questions and simplistic strawman claim of “at least my perspective is better than being a stupid Christian”, it’s not frustrating at all. I’m sorry to destroy your fantasies. I have facts supporting what I have said. I’m still waiting for you and JB to show evidence for your claims and to show us why we should believe that your version of Christianity is the only true one and that your god exists at all.

heh, yep, I know. 🙂 It’s nothing new, but I find it important to stand up to such nonsense any time I can. Engaging with people like JB and MMM also gives them plenty of rope with which to hang themselves and to show that their religion isn’t as claimed.

Thanks, MMM. It’s good to see that you can’t answer my questions, still have no evidence for your claims and continue to make new false ones.

It seems that now you do admit that Comfort is indeed trying to bribe people to, as you say, “win you to his way of thinking”. Rather than just depending on the message, and donate $25,000

I am not “mad” at Comfort, though I’m sure you wish to pretend so. I have pointed out that Comfort is a hypocrite and he has done a most excellent job of showing that there is no reason to believe the claims of the bible. As for your claim that I am mad “at those who give up on” me, I have no idea where this came from. Hmmm, where have I said anything like this or even implied it? It seems you have made up more nonsense but I’m more than happy to see where you think I’ve indicated the above.

Oh I know exactly what the term liar means. It’s someone who intentionally makes false claims. Now, here’s where you refute my points by showing evidence to the contrary.

Like clockwork, you, like so many TrueChristians before, now whine that my post is too long, when you have had no problem reading and responding to similar posts and have made posts just as long yourself. It would be no problem in you were in a class and were going to be tested on my post to make you read it, MMM. Alas, it’s not so easy on the web where people can pick and choose what to read and why. Nice attempt to move the goalposts, but it fails as always. I can guess you didn’t just “skim” my post, but it’s convenient to claim otherwise isn’t it, to make a false claim intentionally. I always wonder about theists who seem to think that their god won’t notice when they lie or that it doesn’t care, especially Christians. You may wish to review Romans 3.

I don’t need to offer sandwiches. That does make one wonder why Ray Comfort does and why he chooses to do this rather than simply donate that $25,000 to one of the many worthy organizations in DC or indeed anywhere rather than trying to shill his book.

I do want to thank you again for making this excuse why you can’t heal people as promised in the bible. There is no caveat offered by JC or anyone in the bible that the person being healed must believe as you do. “The only trouble is, you keep bringing up specific verses in the Bible and asking me to defend my inability to heal people who don’t really believe I can heal them in the first place.”

ah, I think I see where you want to claim I’m angry that people who give up on me. IT’s when you are so happy that “fine, starve and burn you idiot”. and I pointed out you were a sadistic twit. I’m not mad at you for being a sadistic twit. I’m more than happy you show that you are, because it supports my points about the harm religion can cause. Since none of your fantasy will come true, there’s no reason to be mad at you for it. I do get angry when some Christians spread such nonsense and it makes people afraid of the bogeyman they’ve invented. People shouldn’t be afraid of something that doesn’t exist.

You’re the student who flat REFUSES to eat anything that’s put in front of him. In fact, you write long blog posts about what idiots the teachers are, when they try “bribing” you to take a bite. And you accuse them of only working with you for hateful, selfish reasons.

I’ve seen it before.

Then, in true spoiled child fashion, the student complains to his mom that the teachers are bad guys when they move on to the next student.

(Those sadistic twits said something like, “You can eat this or go hungry. But you’d be stupid to let yourself go hungry.” So, of course, the student cried to his mother: “They are calling me stupid!!!!”)

It’s a control thing. A power struggle. And there’s no way to win with a someone who’s willing to hurt themselves just to feel like some kind of victor.

So–you win! Christians who are trying to convert you are idiots, and the Christians who stop trying to convert you are unloving twits.

Hmmm, seems you are getting a little confused in your analogies and still unable to support your claims.

I write blog posts showing that Ray Comfort a hypocrite and a liar, as some folks who call themselves Christians and you and JB have done a great job supporting that conclusion by your actions. We know for a fact that Ray Comfort is offering a bribe to try to get people to take his book. Considering his ignorance about biology, and any of the sciences, I suppose it is fair to call him an idiot. By their own words, we know that Ray et al are working for selfish reason, to self-aggrandize themselves by spending $25,000 to get people to take his books rather than give this money to people who need it, like through food pantries, homeless shelters.

Since you’ve invented the whole fantasy of the “student who REFUSES”, I’m sure you’ve seen it before. Not that it’s true. It’s always great fun to watch you again try to lie about me and what I do. Does false witnessing ring a bell?

I do ask you to show exactly how your attempt at an anology “Then, in true spoiled child fashion, the student complains to his mom that the teachers are bad guys when they move on to the next student.” works. What *are* you trying to say?

Wow, you are getting even better, MMM. I do like you having certain types of Christians saying such things like “, “You can eat this or go hungry. But you’d be stupid to let yourself go hungry.” So, of course, the student cried to his mother: “They are calling me stupid!!!!”
Since the Christians are offering nothing to “eat”, it is rather silly to claim that one is stupid for not eating something that doesn’t exist. Of course, you can all people stupid all that you like. JB is fond of calling his audience “not too bright”.

Please show evidence of your claims, MMM. Show me that it is indeed “stupid” for not believing in your god by showing your god exists and that Christians may do the miracles promised in the bible (not only for people who believe just like them). Show me that the hell you fantasize about exists, waiting to torture me for eternity for not agreeing with you. I’ve had plenty of other types of theists make the same claims as you, just with different character names and places, and I have no more reason to believe you than I or *you* believe them.
I don’t know if you’ll be at the RR or not but I was thinking that there will likely be injured veterans very close by since the RR will be at the Lincoln Memorial and within a very short distance there will be the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the WWII memorial. There will likely be plenty of homeless folks around. Now, what is the best action here? To watch Comfort offer books, where you’ll get a gift card if you take one as he has claimed will be the modus operandi, or to heal folks and make sure that the people who are really hungry get something to eat? How about taking those cards to a day program for kids who have to depend on school breakfasts and subsidized lunches to get at least a little decent food a day?

Finally here we have your claim “So–you win! Christians who are trying to convert you are idiots, and the Christians who stop trying to convert you are unloving twits.”

Nope, not at all, but nice try again. With your intentional misrepresentation of what I have said, and after being called on it several times, using the term lie is quite appropriate for what you so.

Christians who are trying to convert me by using bribes and wasting money that could be used to help people who really need it are sad little people who need attention. Christians who say that I deserve to be tortured for eternity for disagreeing with their beliefs (which not even all Christians agree on) are sadistic (not unloving, please do get it right MMM) twits

So, MMM, since you seem to think you can heal people as your bible promises, if only when they believe as you do, let us know when that occurs. An actual miracle might not get me to worship such a god as yours, but it would go far into showing that it exists.

Ah, it seems that you still aren’t telling the truth and still trying to animate your strawman. I’ll be happy to show your claims to be lies again since *this* actual skeptic does provide evidence and will answer questions.

Is lying a bad thing? That depends. You may wish to the Frank and van Pels familes.

Is bribery a bad thing? My subjective opinion is that it is with very few exceptions because it can cause harm e.g. allowing some people to get better treatment than others, influencing reactions for reasons not applicable to the action.

Oh, so this is about your need to have a reason for your god so you run to the claim that all morals are from your god and your morals are the only right ones since you want to claim that they are from a god that you can’t show exists.

Yep, I would say that they are wrong and for entirely subjective reasons since I’m human. No proof possible or needed. Lying usually hurts someone, but not always. It is an attempt to take away someone’s ability to make a choice or to spread false claims about someone in order to get some advantage. Bribery does hurt people, for the reasons I listed above. I suppose bribery could be a good thing if it would allow people to escape their captors, like Nazis or such.

Now, if we look at your bible, MMM, it says that lying is *never* acceptable, no caveats at all given. It also says that bribery is *never* acceptable. Add this to the fact that Christians like you cannot show what morals their god supports and reviles, and there is no reason to believer your version of your god exists or is the source of some objective morality.

So, MMM, your turn:

Is lying a bad thing?
What about bribery?
Would you say they’re wrong?
Can you prove they’re wrong, please?

“My subjective opinion is that [bribery is bad] with very few exceptions because it can cause harm… I would say that they are wrong and for entirely subjective reasons since I’m human. No proof possible or needed.” But you claimed you could provide evidence!

From the way I have been treated, I believe the next thing I’m supposed to say is, “LIAR!!!! You’re such a LYING LIAR, YOU LIAR-PANTS!!!!!”

But, I won’t say that. 🙂 I’ll simply remind you I’m not interested in a “subjective opinion.” I was told I could get EVIDENCE here, remember? So, I’ll ask another way: where is the evidence that Ray Comfort or John or myself has done anything WRONG? (Pro tip: if you have to use the Bible to make your case, then you’re “borrowing from Christianity” the way I suggested earlier…)

Hmmm now, why did I know you were doing to say this. You’ve missed the point and the evidence, as usual. And you’ve forgotten what you asked, trying to move the goalposts again. Let’s see what you said:

“Is lying a bad thing?
What about bribery?
Would you say they’re wrong?
Can you prove they’re wrong, please?”

I cannot “prove” that actions are wrong, and I don’t believe I ever said I could considering I said I *couldn’t* in your quoting of me (but you are welcome to show where I did and I’ll be happy to say I was mistaken) but I can show evidence that *I think* that they are wrong and why, which is what you asked. This is supported by the agreement by most, if not all, civilizations that bribery is wrong and lying is wrong because it causes objective harm. This is evidence too. Perhaps this makes my point clearer. Morals have no objective basis, except for the fact that morals come from humans and they change. There is evidence that morals are subjective and there is evidence that humans have invented them. There is evidence that most humans agree on many morals, despite their religions.

Proof isn’t evidence, MMM. It’s time you learned that.

Nice to see that you haven’t much but now acting like a 12 year old. You’ve already made more false claims that and it’s cute that you think that you can smirk and say you haven’t.

You ask where is the evidence that you or Ray or JB has done anything wrong. It is in the agreement of civilizations, MMM. It is most interesting that you have not been able to answer your own questions. Why is that, MMM?

Let me ask you, do you consider your bible and its words evidence, MMM? If you do, then we have evidence that lying and bribery are wrong, ideas taken from civilizations that the bible authors lived in (all agreeing and all having different gods). If you don’t think its evidence, there’s a problem with your belief in it.

The problem with your claim that the bible is the source of all morality is that it isn’t true at all. If borrowing from a religion is wrong, then Christianity is terribly wrong in that it borrows from the religions before it. It wasn’t your bible that came up with the golden rule or morals that said lying and bribery were wrong. Those ideas were written down and spoken about long before the Israelites invented their stories and the Christians invented theirs. And considering that Christians can’t agree on what morals their god supposed indicated are the “right” ones, there is no reason to believe that there is any objective morality in the bible or Christian claims at all.

How about we consider how Christians differ in what they consider “sin”? Is homosexuality a sin or not?

Where did Club get the idea that you think morality comes from the Bible?

Your blog.

Take the entry, “Proud Member of the Morality Police, at your Service” . . . the indicators are there. .

Or from another entry – “The scary thing about accepting homosexuality isn’t whether it’s “contagious.” The problem is, we’re proving we are a generation of humans who don’t have a foundation and can be convinced to agree or disagree based on feelings alone.” The foundation of which you are speaking? Doesn’t take much figuring to realize to which dusty tome you are referring.

Okay, well, to quote one of my mentors, “I’m still waiting for evidence” that I believe morality comes from the Bible.

I’m afraid people in this thread are starting to confuse things I’ve said with things they’ve said FOR ME.

It would be easier if you stopped putting words in my mouth. (But you can’t. Because if I stop giving you things to tear down, you have nothing to say. My evidence for this claim is the way no one can answer a question without bringing up MY assumed beliefs.)

““Again, I agree that we shouldn’t expect biblical morality out of the 17% of our people who admit they are unbelievers. But the VAST MAJORITY of us don’t fall in that category.” and you were making a false claim.

I’ll ask you directly: Do you believe morality comes from your bible and your god?

I’m curious what excuses you will offer. Please do show where anyone has put words in your mouth, MMM. IF you cannot, and do not recant, my points about the actions of Christians get better and better supported.

I also would like to ask you another question: are Mormons Christians? Are Jehovah’s Witnesses? Are Roman Catholics? Are the various sects of the eastern Orthodox churches? Unitarians? Cathars? Coptic Christians? Pentacostals? Seventh Day Adventists? Presybeterians? The various sects of Anabaptists?

That’s hilarious, MMM. Nice try but saying that you try to live up to what is in the bible is the same as saying as you believe that this is where morality comes from. IF this is not the case, WHY do you try to live up to what is written in there?

Christians claim that their bible is the word of God, so, unless you want to claim it is not, aka, that thing you are trying to live up to what is written in there, it is the same question: “does morality come from the bible?” “does morality come from your god?” If you want to say there is a difference, please do so. It makes a fine problem for Christians no matter what you say.

Always good to see a TrueChristian call me a fool. Hmmm, what did your savior say about that?

Hmmm, it seems you think we should kill people for causing trouble, no matter what, that’s quite biblical. So, for your lovely question ““Why shouldn’t we execute people like Ray Comfort, for the harm they’re causing?”” We shouldn’t kill people for being stupid because stupid can be cured. We can counter such lies as you and Ray Comfort tell and we do not need to kill them.

I’m still waiting for you to show me that it is stupid for not believing in your god. I am waiting for evidence for your claims, MMM. Show me your version of your god exists. Show me that your god agrees with your version of morality that you pick and choose from the bible. Just how many people have you killed for working on the Sabbath? And exactly when is the Sabbath, since Christians can’t even agree about that?

or are you claiming now that you didn’t mean this ““Again, I agree that we shouldn’t expect biblical morality out of the 17% of our people who admit they are unbelievers. But the VAST MAJORITY of us don’t fall in that category.” and you were making a false claim.

I’ll ask you directly: Do you believe morality comes from your bible and your god?

Wow, MMM, way to dig yourself in deeper. Let me give you a class in grammar, writing and the English language.

We have the sentence in question: “Again, I agree that we shouldn’t expect biblical morality out of the 17% of our people who admit they are unbelievers. But the VAST MAJORITY of us don’t fall in that category.”

Now, let’s break this down. The term biblical means the following ” of, relating to, or being in accord with the Bible” (merriam-webster.com) This holds whether it is capitalized or not. And if you don’t agree with that, I happen to have a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary which says “of, relating to, or contained in, the Bible”. In this sentence, “biblical” is an adjective modifying the word “morality”, giving more information to help the reader define what kind or morality is meant by the author. You do not expect “biblical morality” from 17% of the population, but do expect it from 83% of the population, which you claim are Christians.

We can also get more information about what you have written and intentionally mean by the context of the post you wrote that contained this sentence. You are concerned with Christians not being morality police enough. You want Christians to judge people more and you claim that only you know the truth to that people should just other people by “I’m speaking the Truth to a culture of which–theoretically–83% should already agree.” Here you have said that 83% of people are Christians (aka the “Body” and should agree with you and the bible. And you cite the bible for your marching orders “Supposedly, the VAST MAJORITY of people in the culture belong to the Body and have agreed to the responsibility (and accountability) that comes with that. Christians absolutely are called to watch and correct fellow brothers and sisters. (Gal. 6:1, Matt 18, James 5:19,20) With freaking 83% of us claiming the name of Christ–how in God’s Name did homosexuality and abortion become hot button issues in American culture???”

So, that quote does say that you believe morality comes from the bible, in simply grammar. You may of course tell us that you do not believe the bible is the “Truth” as you have written it which would make my conclusion fail. Will you? Now, since you are trying to claim that “biblical morality” doesn’t mean morality from the Bible, please tell us exactly what you meant.

You of course think that only your version of Christianity right, so I am asking you again, are all of the various other Christian sects I listed (and there are plenty) more, Christians in your view?

I’ve had many discussions with other religious people about whether the Bible is the best way to determine what’s right or wrong. I’m open to the idea that the Bible is not God’s word. It’s a conversation I would have with someone who can show they are good at abstract thought and who doesn’t take every conversation into a game of “gotcha.”

It’s possible the Bible is the best way to figure out what’s right/wrong when confused humans try to change things. But right/wrong is objective and unchanging–regardless of whether the Bible is full of errors. (I’m open to a conversation with someone who knows God, but does not trust the Bible as his word.)

But, first, that person and I would have to agree morality doesn’t just COME FROM humans.

Do you believe that morality is just a list of things most humans agree to follow, and it can change over time?

Ah, still trying to ignore your own claims that the bible is the source of morality. It’s hilarious to see that you now claim that you are supposedly “open” to theh idea that the bible isn’t God’s word. This is nonsense when coming from a woman who claims that biblical morality should be followed by all Christians.

So, now you claim that “right/wrong is objective and unchanging”. Hmmm, so is the bible wrong now when it claimed that some ideas were right and objective and unchanging, and it’s really embarrassing for Christians to admit that now? What is “right/wrong” then, MMM, and how can you tell? YOu seem to want to run back to the bible, but by your own admission, it might not be your god’s word, and there is no reason at all to think that it is. Unless you want to present evidence that it really is. Do you?

Ah, there we have it. You are only open to a conversation about this with someone who has the a priori belief in your god and your god just as you have invented it, in your own image. Yep, they would have to agree with you before you would talk with them “But, first, that person and I would have to agree morality doesn’t just COME FROM humans.” Wow, isn’t that the best definition of echo chamber that there has ever been?

Morality is based on morals “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior” I prefer to see it as what is beneficial to most and what is harmful to most. I am thrilled to know that morals and morality changes and gets better as human civilization grows and changes. What we have now is much better than the xenophobic and misogynistic nonsense that prior humans had. Christianity is a great example of how religion always has to play catch up to humans. The bible is a great way to see how humans have gotten better, but how humans want to hang onto ignorance and xenophobia when they are told that some god approves of such nonsense. Christians can’t agree on what morals this god approves of at all. So there is no reason to believe that your god has any objective morality since it evidently is unable to make itself clear. Heck, it may have some objective morality, but none of its supposed worshippers have this secret because it either can’t get the idea across or that it doesn’t want to e.g. an evil son of a bitch. And there is no reason to think that MMM and her fear of anyone different from her has any “Truth” that she claims.

How did you share that screen shot earlier? I have one I’d like to share.

I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting all of the places in your last two comments that you tried talking about me and my beliefs and/or trying to get me to defend Christianity…

I’d like to submit these screen shots as “evidence” that atheism is nothing more than stylistic arguing–and it doesn’t actually answer any questions on its own…

(The only two sentences that at least attempted to answer my questions were these: “I prefer to see it as what is beneficial to most and what is harmful to most. I am thrilled to know that morals and morality changes and gets better as human civilization grows and changes.” And, in your other comment: “We shouldn’t kill people for being stupid because stupid can be cured. We can counter such lies as you and Ray Comfort tell and we do not need to kill them.”

It was a lot of reading to get to those tiny answers, but I’ll take it.

The screenshot is something I as the admin of the site can put in by just clicking on a button. I’m guessing that someone who knows html would be able to do it. I’ll allow your image. see below.

Yep, I’ve talked about you and your beliefs. You can cut and whatever you want if you want to discuss such things. I’ve shown where you have made claims and have refuse to answer questions put to you. If you have an argument that atheism “is nothing more than stylistic arguing” you shouldn’t need a screenshot at all. I have answered your questions, MMM. You asked what I thought about lies and bribery and I asked you. Funny enough, you have yet to answer your own questions as asked. Why is that, MMM?

Cut and paste away and show how what you cut and paste is evidence of your claim. Then you need to explain how those quotes are evidence for your claim. I will put up your screenshot, if it is accompanied with your explanation since I am not inclined to watch one more Christian try to throw shit at a wall and hope that some of it might stick by expecting that someone else will do their work for them. You can send both to my email at velkyn_at_comcast.net It’ll be a great addition to be able to show how many questions you have ignored and refused to answer.

Funny how those sentences that you have quoted from me are indeed answers to your question. I know you really really want to pretend those aren’t answers but you have yet to show how they aren’t. An answer is a response to a question, it doesn’t depend on if you don’t like the response which is all you are complaining about. Your attempts at gotcha questions don’t work out well for you at all, MMM.

I am not interested in answering any more of your questions until you send me your email and answer my questions and your own as well as evidence for your claims. None off my questions are rhetorical. I do expect answers, unlike poor JB who got hoisted by his own petard with his sad little attempt. I have cut and pasted them so you may start:

“I do ask you to show exactly how your attempt at an anology “Then, in true spoiled child fashion, the student complains to his mom that the teachers are bad guys when they move on to the next student.” works. What *are* you trying to say?”

“I don’t know if you’ll be at the RR or not but I was thinking that there will likely be injured veterans very close by since the RR will be at the Lincoln Memorial and within a very short distance there will be the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the WWII memorial. There will likely be plenty of homeless folks around. Now, what is the best action here? To watch Comfort offer books, where you’ll get a gift card if you take one as he has claimed will be the modus operandi, or to heal folks and make sure that the people who are really hungry get something to eat? How about taking those cards to a day program for kids who have to depend on school breakfasts and subsidized lunches to get at least a little decent food a day?”

“As for your claim that I am mad “at those who give up on” me, I have no idea where this came from. Hmmm, where have I said anything like this or even implied it?”

“Is Ray Comfort a Christian as described in the bible? The evidence says not. This can also be applied to JB and yourself and every other Christian since evidence cannot be supply to support the biblical claim. IF the message is so good, why is there a need of bribes?”

“Where have you said this “I said students love the attention they get from throwing fits and controlling conversations.” in a prior post? How could one analyze this if it wasn’t there? Or are you mistaken again, MMM?”

“So, MMM, since you seem to think you can heal people as your bible promises, if only when they believe as you do, let us know when that occurs.”

“Is lying a bad thing?
What about bribery?
Would you say they’re wrong?
Can you prove they’re wrong, please?”

“Let me ask you, do you consider your bible and its words evidence, MMM? If you do, then we have evidence that lying and bribery are wrong, ideas taken from civilizations that the bible authors lived in (all agreeing and all having different gods). If you don’t think its evidence, there’s a problem with your belief in it.”

“How about we consider how Christians differ in what they consider “sin”? Is homosexuality a sin or not?”

“I’ll ask you directly: Do you believe morality comes from your bible and your god?”

“I also would like to ask you another question: are Mormons Christians? Are Jehovah’s Witnesses? Are Roman Catholics? Are the various sects of the eastern Orthodox churches? Unitarians? Cathars? Coptic Christians? Pentacostals? Seventh Day Adventists? Presybeterians? The various sects of Anabaptists?”

“Nice try but saying that you try to live up to what is in the bible is the same as saying as you believe that this is where morality comes from. IF this is not the case, WHY do you try to live up to what is written in there?”

“Christians claim that their bible is the word of God, so, unless you want to claim it is not, aka, that thing you are trying to live up to what is written in there, it is the same question: “does morality come from the bible?” “does morality come from your god?” If you want to say there is a difference, please do so. It makes a fine problem for Christians no matter what you say.
Always good to see a TrueChristian call me a fool. Hmmm, what did your savior say about that?”

“I’m still waiting for you to show me that it is stupid for not believing in your god. I am waiting for evidence for your claims, MMM. Show me your version of your god exists. Show me that your god agrees with your version of morality that you pick and choose from the bible. Just how many people have you killed for working on the Sabbath? And exactly when is the Sabbath, since Christians can’t even agree about that?”

“I’ll ask you directly: Do you believe morality comes from your bible and your god?”

“So, that quote does say that you believe morality comes from the bible, in simply grammar. You may of course tell us that you do not believe the bible is the “Truth” as you have written it which would make my conclusion fail. Will you? Now, since you are trying to claim that “biblical morality” doesn’t mean morality from the Bible, please tell us exactly what you meant.”

“You of course think that only your version of Christianity right, so I am asking you again, are all of the various other Christian sects I listed (and there are plenty) more, Christians in your view?”

“So, now you claim that “right/wrong is objective and unchanging”. Hmmm, so is the bible wrong now when it claimed that some ideas were right and objective and unchanging, and it’s really embarrassing for Christians to admit that now? What is “right/wrong” then, MMM, and how can you tell? YOu seem to want to run back to the bible, but by your own admission, it might not be your god’s word, and there is no reason at all to think that it is. Unless you want to present evidence that it really is. Do you?”
Please show that your god exists. Please show that hell exists. Please show that your god agrees with MMM’s version of Christianity.

Some of them are repeated since you didn’t answer the question the first time I asked. I may not like the answers you may give, but I am not so silly to not call them answers as you are.

I already told you waaaaaaay back that I’m not here to answer questions…

You assured me that you’d be happy to answer mine.

That’s why all the time you’re spending talking about me and my beliefs is wasted. (Don’t worry about the screen shots; everyone can see the majority of your posts aren’t answers to questions, but are attempts to put the ball in my court instead.)

I’m starting to think you CAN’T write a comment without bringing up god, the Bible, or Christianity? (Actually, I’ve thought that from the beginning. That’s why I laughed when your very first question was, “May I ask if you’re a Christian?”… If you recall, my response was that my background only matters to people who have nothing to say unless they’re tearing down someone else…)

Maybe you’ll show me otherwise by answering this question without getting sidetracked by whatever you think I believe: Is Ray Comfort an evil man, or is he just stupid?

Yep, I know that you said you weren’t here to answer questions; I wanted you to mention that again in your own words. And why reason did you give? Ah yes “But I’m not interested in giving you something to tear apart.” You’ve done so anyway, by your baseless claims and actions. I’ve given you the opportunity to support your claims and to defend your lies about me and many other things, and you refuse. All we have left is a troll who is apparently terrified to actually participate in a discussion and who has done a most excellent job at showing a Christian to be doing little more than behaving badly by showing she is no more interested in her religion and her supposed god’s commands than I am. Thank you for bolstering my points about how Christianity does not make anyone better.

You’ve claimed I haven’t answered your questions and that is a lie. I am offering you the chance to answer your own questions to demonstrate what you would find to be an acceptable answer. You of course won’t since this would show your claims about my answers to be the nonsense they are.

My time talking about you and your beliefs isn’t wasted at all. You’ve done a great job at showing how you are so desperate to avoid answering questions that you deny you believe morals come from the bible and your god, despite the evidence and quotes from you that you indeed do. The character Peter himself doesn’t hold a candle to you for denial.

It’s no surprise that you now don’t want to have your supposedly highlighted screen shots put up. As expected, you did want to have them put up and not actually have to support your claims. Just one more baseless claim you tried to make and now when called on it, suddenly the Christian has no evidence at all. Alas, your next claim is just as false “everyone can see the majority of your posts aren’t answers to questions, but are attempts to put the ball in my court instead”. Funny how no one is supporting you or your claims at all.

Considering that this is the comments area about a post about a Christian and his actions in relationship to the supposed beliefs of Christians and their god, and that I am responding to your posts which mention your religion and your god, it would be a little peculiar if I started talking about Deadpool or the Antikythera mechanism. This complaint, is a common Christian tactic, wanting everyone to sit down and shut up when it comes to pointing out the failures of themselves and their religion. You can read my blog if you want to read a post that doesn’t mention your god. I’d recommend starting with those sorted by “from the kitchen” and then you can put your doubts to rest.

My first question to you, “may I ask if you are a Christian?” was because you were trying to pretend you weren’t, and that is what you admitted, that you were trying to pretend to be a skeptic, MMM. The background of someone matters if it shows that they are intentionally lying and when their religion says that lies are a very bad thing.

You have given me a great opportunity to more fully examine another one of your actions; asking this question “Is Ray Comfort an evil man, or is he just stupid?”. Ray Comfort is an ignorant man, and/or an intentional liar, who thinks he can pass on his ignorance and his intentional lies about biology to others to convince them to agree with him and give Ray external validation. He does not have to be evil or stupid, invalidating your question. This causes harm because it makes people think that the world works in a way that it does not and this can cause poor decision and mistakes You see, MMM, your question is what is called a loaded question (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question) , and is a dishonest attempt to try to force someone into making a choice between the parameters you offer. The person asked the question is not limited by those attempted imposed limits and can answer as they please, which always causes the questioner to whine and complain because their sad little trick didn’t work. Now, please commence to complain. Or you may indicate what you would think an acceptable answer would be and why. I will wager you will do the former.

Comfort has claimed that evolutionary theory is wrong and tries to point to the banana as evidence. What Mr. Comfort fails to mention is that the banana he uses in his claims is not the original banana, but one that has been modified by humans using the principles of genetics and selection. The banana that “fits” the human hand so well, is one that we invented by humans, the original one is this:

one has to wonder what it is that you claim “that’s what I thought”. With this lovely vagueness, one can reasonably assume that you agree with my comment, but I rather doubt that. It appears that this is no more than your attempt to throw more shit at a wall in order to pretend you have some important observation.

I’m going to guess that this might be an attempt at a Parthian shot by someone who has nothing else and realizes that being a bully (include the requisite cowardliness) hasn’t worked out so well. As always, MMM, you are always welcome here and are always expected to support your claims by evidence. You will be called out on your actions and your claims will not go unchallenged.

I said: “I’m starting to think you CAN’T write a comment without bringing up god, the Bible, or Christianity? (Actually, I’ve thought that from the beginning. That’s why I laughed when your very first question was, “May I ask if you’re a Christian?”… If you recall, my response was that my background only matters to people who have nothing to say unless they’re tearing down others…)

Maybe you’ll show me otherwise by answering this question without getting sidetracked by whatever you think I believe: Is Ray Comfort an evil man, or is he just stupid?”

Your next comment was mostly about ME. You can’t have a conversation without tearing down another person.

I don’t owe you any explanations. Period. I wasn’t the one who wrote the post about Ray Comfort, so I’m not the one who has to defend myself.

But you can’t answer without trying to flip the script and make demands from others.

Yes, MMM, I know what you said, and I have no idea why you are repeating it. And I pointed you to information that can allay your doubts and know that they are as wrong as your other false claims about me. Claims I am still waiting for you to support and show that such a TrueChristian isn’t attempting to bear false witness against someone.

I’m not getting sidetracked by anything, since I’ve been happily answering your questions, and watching you desperately trying to ignore mine. It’s lovely to watch you become indignant when I answer them and show you wrong again.

I have answered your question. As I stated, I don’t have to answer your question in the false choices you try to offer me. Your attempts to force me to give you an answer you approve of are wonderful examples of a TrueChristian fishing for an answer that she can then attack. Hmmm, it seems you are using the exact techniques that you accuse me of and then cannot show that I actually use.

Yep, I do comment about you. I show that your claims are nonsense. I know you don’t like it, but that is not my concern. I have no problem at all at showing when people are making false claims and pointing them out. I will not sit down and shut up just because you whine, MMM. I am more than happy to “tear” you down if you continue to attempt to lie about me and others and make false claims.

No, you don’t owe me or anyone any explanations. You can keep making false claims and telling lies and ignoring the opportunity to support them. No one is stopping you and I am certainly not going to stop pointing your failings out. I have ably defended my self and my conclusions and you have done a lovely job of helping me show this since you cannot support your claims against me. Again, you are more than welcome to do so. I’ll be waiting.

Saying “I thought so” again, does nothing to support your claims. It just shows that you have nothing else to say. Who cares what you think when you cannot prove it to be true?

Ah, the troll is back. How would one describe the color red to a blind man? Red is the part of the electromagnetic spectrum in the wavelength mostly between 620 and 740 nanometers. Certain kinds of apples, flowers, feather etc reflect this light and human eyes pick it up. Some objects, including steel at roughly 1400 degrees F to 1500 degrees F and some stars, put off this wavelength of light. You see, MMM, one doesn’t have to see color to understand it and know what it is. One can be blind and know what the color red is. Now, I’m going to guess that you will say that I didn’t answer the question the way you wanted me to. Here is the opportunity for you to answer your own questions and show me what you think an appropriate answer is. I’m also going to guess you won’t, because you are afraid of answering anything that might show your claims wrong. You needn’t be afraid because you have already done this and the world has not ended. It is okay to be wrong.

Now, are you going to start asking Zen Buddhist koans in your desperate attempt to create a gotcha question, something that you decry others might use it? Why are you asking such questions if you are so very concerned to be sidetracked? Please do show more of your hypocrisy.

You’re correct in guessing that you didn’t answer adequately enough. (It must be frustrating when someone never accepts your evidence, huh?)

The problem is: blind people don’t see flowers, apples, feathers, or any of those other things, either. They know how those objects FEEL. But they’ve never SEEN them. How would you describe colors to someone who doesn’t have sight at all?

It doesn’t matter if blind people don’t see. You said “How would you describe the color red to a blind man?” and I did. Do you know what the word describe means, MMM? describe: to represent or give an account of in words – merriam-webster.com

I believe you when you say that’s how you would describe red to a blind person. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be very helpful. A blind person has never seen anything–so telling him or her “it’s the color of some apples or flowers” doesn’t really go far. They will never fully understand.

This is a blind guy whose YouTube channels is interesting to me… He says that, even though people have tried to explain colors a hundred times. Yet, he still can’t wrap his mind around what they’re like… (He’s just such a jolly guy. I love watching his videos.)

Now it appears you accept that I did give a description of something. Why did you refuse before? And twice? It seems that evidence does outweigh your false claims. This often happens with Christians when they make up nonsense and then when the evidence is against them and they have nothing, suddenly they decide that they agreed with what was said all along. Sigh.

No, you are not “just saying”, MMM when you wrote this “I’m just saying it wouldn’t be very helpful.” You are trying to retcon your actions and unfortunately, the written medium is a great medium to prevent that. You did not say that my description would not be “useful”; you said this

“You’re correct in guessing that you didn’t answer adequately enough. (It must be frustrating when someone never accepts your evidence, huh?)
The problem is: blind people don’t see flowers, apples, feathers, or any of those other things, either. They know how those objects FEEL. But they’ve never SEEN them. How would you describe colors to someone who doesn’t have sight at all?”

Again, you have been caught in making one claim and then trying to pretend you have not. The written medium is not kind to those who try such nonsense. Also, I’m not sure how you might know it could be frustrating if someone doesn’t accept evidence since I still am waiting for you to offer any. That TrueChristian ignores evidence isn’t frustrating, it’s expected.

Please indicate why you are wasting my time and now being so “sidetracked” with such questions, that you cannot answer and that you now try to make false claims about. What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so?

The question I’ve been TRYING to ask, but have apparently confused you deeply, is what would you say to try and help a blind person experience color for themselves? (Of course, they can’t SEE it. But is there a way to describe it well enough for them to finally get it? Some philosophers think so. And should we keep trying?)
I’ve watched this before several times before, too.

Its another fascinating one about theory of mine and the explanatory gap.

And now we’re even more “sidetracked”. MMM, for someone who whined about this so much, it’s hilarious to see you continuing on your course. I suppose it’s better trying to sidetrack me and hope I’ll forget that you are a liar and you cannot support your claims about Ray Comfort or anything else. Here’s your expressed concern and a lovely example of a question asked, it was answered by me and you claimed I did not answer it “Maybe you’ll show me otherwise by answering this question without getting sidetracked by whatever you think I believe: Is Ray Comfort an evil man, or is he just stupid?”

You’ve already asked your question about the blind people and colors, and I answered you. You have admitted this, so why we are still on this, I have no idea. You have indeed moved the goalposts, again, since your original question was not at all what you now claim, and that makes you intentionally lying to me. Your original question was this “How would you describe the color red to a blind man?” It was not your new question “The question I’ve been TRYING to ask, but have apparently confused you deeply, is what would you say to try and help a blind person experience color for themselves? (Of course, they can’t SEE it. But is there a way to describe it well enough for them to finally get it? Some philosophers think so. And should we keep trying?)”

I’m glad you are still digging yourself in deeper in demonstrating that you are not honest person at all. Your questions do not confuse me and I am amused that you would continue to try to make such personal attacks against me with no evidence whatsoever.

Now, to answer your new question, I would use comparisons to senses that they do have to express what I feel when I see a color. One can also use this comparison with those who are color blind in some manner. A friend of mine was really color blind and his world was shades of gray with glimmers of color. His spouse would always lay out his clothes for him and you didn’t want him to set his own screen colors, because they’d be unusually garish. Somewhat related to this is the phenomenon of blindsight, where your brain still reacts to what you see, but it doesn’t come up on your visual cortext: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight I don’t care what philosophers think for in general their claims are as baseless as yours. As for the question “should we keep trying to describe to blind people what they can’t see, well, I think that’s up to blind people. Do they want to hear it or not? Do they care or not? And hopefully, in the near future, they won’t have to not see, because technology invented and advanced by humans may make the question moot: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41052/title/The-Bionic-Eye/

Again, Please indicate why you are wasting my time and now being so “sidetracked” with such questions, that you cannot answer and that you now try to make false claims about. What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so?

Can’t we just talk about how crazy it would be to never see a single thing–but to know that other people had that ability? You don’t think that’s fascinating? I’d like to ask Tommy Edison a thousand questions…

We can talk about anything. However, you are the one who started this thread of comments insisting that how dare anyone want to discuss the failures of Ray Comfort and Christianity in general. Then you whined when your own claims were considered and shown to be baseless saying this “Maybe you’ll show me otherwise by answering this question without getting sidetracked by whatever you think I believe: Is Ray Comfort an evil man, or is he just stupid?” and you repeated the claim again. So, again, MMM, why do you now want to ignore your own words and talk about anything at all but your false claims about me, your religion and Ray Comfort, and my conclusions about such things? It seems that you want to pretend that you never made such claims at all, never lied and said I wasn’t giving descriptions, and want to pretend we’re just all here chatting about science and random questions that you want to ask me. It’s most curious that you seem to think that no one will remember your actions and hold you accountable.

Your sudden interest in science seems to be belied by your past actions and claims on your own blog. Yes, it is curious to think about how someone can’t see and another person can. However, any ability not shared by everyone is of that caliber. I’d love to know how it feels to be a gifted acrobat since I have crappy balance and my joints are unusually inflexible. But I can’t, and I have to deal with descriptions from those who are skilled like that. It would be fun to chat with Edison but I think Tesla would be the better conversationalist. I do wonder if you’d refuse to answer their questions to you as you have done with me.

I’d be happy to. And I’ll be happy to give plenty of commentary because it is necessary and quite fun. It’s just like how dear JB tried to claim a question was rhetorical in desperate hope that there would be no answer to show his failure. such a grand supposedly rhetorical question he asked “This is rhetorical: Is there ANY activity a Christian could do that’s good? ” And of course there are plenty of activities that Christians can do that are good. It’s no surprise that he has again run away from his comments on this blog. I’m sure he’ll be back and try his best to pretend that he never asked such a thing.

Thanks, MMM, for showing that you don’t actually want to discuss the sciences. Strange how this interest of yours in a discussion about how curious it is to discuss things that someone else can’t experience has evaporated.

I think I’ll even add the questions you’ve refused to answer. Happily, in a written medium, this can be an easy task, if a bit tedious to have to re-read your nonsense.

No, please don’t include the questions I’ve refused to answer… I know you’ve been asking questions, and you know that I’ve been intentionally ignoring them . There’s no use repeating your questions to me. I’ve already heard them a dozen times and will only keep ignoring them.

Please just list for me the declarative statements I’ve made. Just the “claims” (to use your word).

I’d like to see a list of just claims I’ve made about Christianity and Comfort. I’d appreciate it! 🙂

Well, that was a mildly entertaining half hour. Just for the two of us, MMM and maybe Carmen if she’s still reading. Oh and your god, if it exists.

As requested, here is a list of the unsupported claims that MMM has made, including lies about me aka her bearing of false witness against another, showing that MMM has no interest in obeying her god, which makes her quite an anti-Christ if one believed in such nonsense. This list will be followed by the questions that MMM has refused to answer. Many thanks to MMM for requesting this document that condenses such evidence into an easily readable format. Her own blog shows that her comments here are quite in contrast to her claims there.

Her unsupported claims and loaded questions, among other things. Complete with commentary!

“Does it bother you, needing to borrow from other people’s beliefs before you have anything to contribute at all?”
Hmmm, still no evidence that any “borrowing” is going on.

“For example, starting with a post which claims that giving away freebies with your book is completely ludicrous… and then trying to turn it into a conversation about a single, specific bible verse.)”
Hmmm, still no evidence that the gift cards are “freebies” and nothing to show that my post is about only one bible verse. It is about at least a handful, those about the miracles of the loaves and fishes, and several in Mark 16 where JC promises that *any* baptized believer will be able to do miracles, specifically healing other humans. Despite the presence of plenty of people needing healing near the Reason Rally site at Walter Reed AMC, Christians like MMM and Ray Comfort refuse to do something that would help people. They insist on spending $25,000 for sandwiches to convince people to take a book that has no evidence to support its claims.“And you certainly can’t make them read.”

Quite a claim since, as has been stated, this happens in every school in the world.

““Fine. Starve and burn, you idiot.”
A great example of a Christian who fantasizes about hell and people being punished for disagreeing with MMM. Evidence for this hell is yet to be given.

“Skeptics don’t have to defend themselves–ever. All they have to do is ask questions of OTHER PEOPLE, and then say, “That’s not evidence!” when they get a response.”
Poor MMM. I’ve asked her to show this to be the case and as of yet, no evidence of such a thing. She’s been shown that skeptics do indeed give evidence and defend themselves and she chooses to repeat the lie and still has not given any evidence to support her claim. MMM, you are still welcome to show where I have said “that is not evidence.” Your strawman atheist still has yet to come to life for you.

“The only trouble is, you keep bringing up specific verses in the Bible and asking me to defend my inability to heal people who don’t really believe I can heal them in the first place.”
This is a wonderful excuse on why a TrueChristian can’t display her promised magical powers. It’s everyone else’s fault that she can’t do anything. But when it was pointed out that we surely can find one Christian at Walter Reed AMC, she ignores that point. There is no caveat offered by JC or anyone in the bible that the person being healed must believe as MMM does.

“Is it frustrating to not to have anything to teach people who are on the fence, other than “At least my perspective is better than being a stupid Christian!”?”
MMM has made this claim and cannot show where this sentiment was expressed by myself. How unsurprising.

“To be mad at Comfort for trying to win you to his way of thinking AND be mad at those who give up on you is irrational. That’s the definition of being impossible…”
Of course, no evidence for these claims either. MMM has done a great job of acknowledging that Ray Comfort is trying to “win” over others, rather than just giving out a “freebie”.

“You’re the student who flat REFUSES to eat anything that’s put in front of him. In fact, you write long blog posts about what idiots the teachers are, when they try “bribing” you to take a bite. And you accuse them of only working with you for hateful, selfish reasons.”
Again, no evidence for this attempt at an analogy.

“(Those sadistic twits said something like, “You can eat this or go hungry. But you’d be stupid to let yourself go hungry.” So, of course, the student cried to his mother: “They are calling me stupid!!!!”)”
MMM has been asked to show that her god exists and that her religion is true so she can support the claim that it is “stupid” not to believe. Still waiting for that evidence.

“Christians who are trying to convert you are idiots, and the Christians who stop trying to convert you are unloving twits.”
Again, nothing to support that I have said anything like this attempt to create an atheist strawman.

“You forgot to analyze the part where I said students love the attention they get from throwing fits and controlling conversations.”
Still hasn’t shown where this was said by MMM or where this happened by the supposed “student”.

““WHY do we assume a Creator would be loving and fair? WHY can’t he be cruel?””
This was on MMM’s own blog and was shown to be wrong by the fact that other people do discuss this. MMM needs to show why anyone should consider her personal ignorance evidence.

“Nah, I’m a Skeptic now. I don’t provide evidence. I just demand answers from others…”
A repetition of a false claim from earlier. Still no evidence and more lovely bearing of false witness against another.

“I’ll simply remind you I’m not interested in a “subjective opinion.” I was told I could get EVIDENCE here, remember?” “From the way I have been treated, I believe the next thing I’m supposed to say is, “LIAR!!!! You’re such a LYING LIAR, YOU LIAR-PANTS!!!!!””
This is offered as a claim that I did not answer her questions. Those questions were answered and she has of course tried to call me a liar with no evidence presented at all.

“Pro tip: if you have to use the Bible to make your case, then you’re “borrowing from Christianity” the way I suggested earlier…)”
A common assumption that her bible is the sole font of morality. Alas, MMM is ignorant about other religions and doesn’t realize her bible borrows from others. She has yet to show that her religion is the sole font of morality or that her god exists.

“Please try to answer this without bringing up the Bible: “Why shouldn’t we execute people like Ray Comfort, for the harm they’re causing?””
Still waiting for why we should do such a thing per MMM and where I have said anything of the kind.

“But right/wrong is objective and unchanging–regardless of whether the Bible is full of errors.”
Still no evidence for this claim.

“I’d like to submit these screen shots as “evidence” that atheism is nothing more than stylistic arguing–and it doesn’t actually answer any questions on its own…”
MMM claimed she had highlighted a screen capture to support this claim but when offered to have it put up on this blog, she refused to give it since she would be asked to support her claims by showing why what she supposedly highlighted was “evidence” of what she claimed.

“Next question: Do you believe Ray Comfort is evil or just stupid?”
Another lovely loaded question which was answered by ignoring the intentionally limited choices offered.

“I’m starting to think you CAN’T write a comment without bringing up god, the Bible, or Christianity? (Actually, I’ve thought that from the beginning. That’s why I laughed when your very first question was, “May I ask if you’re a Christian?”… If you recall, my response was that my background only matters to people who have nothing to say unless they’re tearing down someone else…)”
A quick reading of my blog can set this doubt to rest. But as always still waiting for evidence to support this attempt to cast aspersions.

“But you can’t answer without trying to flip the script and make demands from others.”
No evidence for this false claim either. It also indicates that MMM has little idea how a discussion is done.

“You’re correct in guessing that you didn’t answer adequately enough. (It must be frustrating when someone never accepts your evidence, huh?)”
Which is shown to be false when she then changes her answer to “I believe you when you say that’s how you would describe red to a blind person. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be very helpful.” After her claims were shown to be false and she was given the definition of “describe”.

“How would you describe the color red to a blind man?”
“The question I’ve been TRYING to ask, but have apparently confused you deeply, is what would you say to try and help a blind person experience color for themselves? (Of course, they can’t SEE it. But is there a way to describe it well enough for them to finally get it? Some philosophers think so. And should we keep trying?)”
An attempt to try to claim that MMM didn’t ask the original question but “really” intended to ask the second, different question, in an attempt to invalidate the answer she received.

Questions MMM has refused to answer:
May I ask if you are a Christian?

“Is lying a bad thing?
What about bribery?
Would you say they’re wrong?
Can you prove they’re wrong, please?”
Questions asked by MMM herself that she refuses to answer.

“Can you provide evidence where I said the Bible is the source of morality?”
This is one of the funnier questions that MMM won’t answer since asks the question and she’s already said she believes this on her own blog in her own words “““Again, I agree that we shouldn’t expect biblical morality out of the 17% of our people who admit they are unbelievers. But the VAST MAJORITY of us don’t fall in that category.”https://culturesatwar.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/proud-member-of-the-morality-police-at-your-service/

“How about we consider how Christians differ in what they consider “sin”? Is homosexuality a sin or not?”

“I’ll ask you directly: Do you believe morality comes from your bible and your god?”

“I also would like to ask you another question: are Mormons Christians? Are Jehovah’s Witnesses? Are Roman Catholics? Are the various sects of the eastern Orthodox churches? Unitarians? Cathars? Coptic Christians? Pentacostals? Seventh Day Adventists? Presybeterians? The various sects of Anabaptists?”

“That’s hilarious, MMM. Nice try but saying that you try to live up to what is in the bible is the same as saying as you believe that this is where morality comes from. IF this is not the case, WHY do you try to live up to what is written in there?”

“You may of course tell us that you do not believe the bible is the “Truth” as you have written it which would make my conclusion fail. Will you? Now, since you are trying to claim that “biblical morality” doesn’t mean morality from the Bible, please tell us exactly what you meant.”

“Hmmm, so is the bible wrong now when it claimed that some ideas were right and objective and unchanging, and it’s really embarrassing for Christians to admit that now? What is “right/wrong” then, MMM, and how can you tell? YOu seem to want to run back to the bible, but by your own admission, it might not be your god’s word, and there is no reason at all to think that it is. Unless you want to present evidence that it really is. Do you?”

““Christians claim that their bible is the word of God, so, unless you want to claim it is not, aka, that thing you are trying to live up to what is written in there, it is the same question: “does morality come from the bible?” “does morality come from your god?” If you want to say there is a difference, please do so. It makes a fine problem for Christians no matter what you say.
Always good to see a TrueChristian call me a fool. Hmmm, what did your savior say about that?””

““I’m still waiting for you to show me that it is stupid for not believing in your god. I am waiting for evidence for your claims, MMM. Show me your version of your god exists. Show me that your god agrees with your version of morality that you pick and choose from the bible. Just how many people have you killed for working on the Sabbath? And exactly when is the Sabbath, since Christians can’t even agree about that?”

“How would you describe the color red to a blind man?”
Offered evidently to “side-track” the discussion since MMM has refused to answer any of my questions but feels she still must ask more of her own.

“Now it appears you accept that I did give a description of something. Why did you refuse before? And twice?”

“What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so?”

“So, again, MMM, why do you now want to ignore your own words and talk about anything at all but your false claims about me, your religion and Ray Comfort, and my conclusions about such things?”
And where MMM decried any attempt to get off track from the questions about Ray Comfort. She has no problem in trying to distract from her own failures by doing exactly what she attacks me for.

“Plus, it takes a hundred years to get back on track.”“Maybe you’ll show me otherwise by answering this question without getting sidetracked by whatever you think I believe: Is Ray Comfort an evil man, or is he just stupid?”

As always still willing to entertain any evidence given to support the false claims above. Now, I’ll play prophet and guess that I’ll see a whine about how long this post was.

mrsmcmommy – Club’s exercised much more patience with your foolishness than I ever would. I’m not sure what your query about medication is about but I think Club lets you keep talking so you can keep revealing what an. . .well, what kind of a christian you are.

MMM, again, it seems you cannot answer your own question and are trying your best to sidetrack the discussion again. What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so? Your baseless claims have been listed again, so you could start trying to support them with evidence. You could also answer the questions put to you but I know you won’t. Taking responsibility for your actions isn’t your strong suit.

Of course not, MMM! There’s no reason to assume you would suddenly become honorable and responsible for your actions. I am more than happy to see you refuse to answer questions; your actions give me more evidence that you are no better a person than the next, and you are certainly worse than most.

You can just show yourself as the woman who tries to intimate that something is wrong with *me* when she cannot support her claims. I suppose that is all you have left, baseless personal attacks and inane questions presented as a distraction from your failure. Please do continue with them. I’m more than happy to let you have more rope.

As I said, if Carmen deigns to answer, I am quite sure that you’ll whine and claim that something is wrong with the answer. In any case, we have more evidence of exactly what kind of person you are. There’s no need for C to answer though, since you’ve been shown that describing sight to a blind person can be done easily.

Again, What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so? It seems that you are continuing to try to act like a bully on my comments, and you certainly are acting like a coward. I guess there’s not much to your faith at all if answering questions is such a threat to it.

“You’ve been shown that describing sight to a blind person can be done easily.”

Easily???
So, you disagree with the blind man who said himself that he often gets “mixed signals” when people try to discribe color to him? It’s really an easy task–despite the blind man still having very little idea what red is? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yes, MMM, easily. One can come up with a bunch of different ways to describe color to the blind. The fact that the blind may have the opinion that they receive “mixed signals” doesn’t mean that the descriptions weren’t easy to create. You’ve already been shown that description doesn’t depend on the person you are describing something to, it depends on *you*. You of course ignored that part of my reply but I’ll be happy to repeat it “I was thinking about this some more and again, we can describe things to other people. No problem there. CAn you describe to me what you see out your bedroom window? Yep. Now, whether its a good description or not can be debated.”

Another example is that my husband sees red differently from each eye, thanks to a childhood injury. What he sees can be different, depending on which eye he has open. He can describe that to me. It’s easy for him to do so and if I don’t quite understand, that is my problem. But I do understand something, even if the description is imperfect. You misrepresent the blind fellow, which isn’t surprising at all. He isn’t disagreeing that coming up with descriptions of sight isn’t easy. He is saying that people have their own opinions of color. So, no, MMM, I don’t disagree with this fellow; I agree with him quite a bit.

As usual, yep, you are misunderstanding someone in your need to try to show me wrong and can only whine because you refuse to answer questions and can’t actually show you have the slightest clue what you are talking about. That’s the problem of being a coward and refusing to answer questions put to you. All you have is running to the next question, hoping no one notice your ignorance. A question I would ask you is if you pray for your god’s help in your current efforts here? I know you won’t answer and it’s not hard to see why.

Still waiting for you to show me how *you* would describe red to a blind person since you are so sure that it isn’t easy and are sure that my descriptions aren’t adequate. Still waiting for you to support your claims about me. Still waiting for you to explain what describing color to the blind has to do with the original post and your false claims that I was “sidetracking” the discussion. I know I’ll still be waiting, but it is quite a bit of fun to see you come up with more ridiculous questions and excuses.

MMM, you are not a friend of mine. A friend doesn’t act like you do. This is again where your actions belie your claims. You are a guest on my blog, that contributes little more than being a demonstration of how Christianity isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. You’re mild entertainment to an atheist; a cat toy.

Again with more questions offered by someone who doesn’t want to have a discussion. It seems you need attention, MMM, and you would like control. It’s like being in high school again with the usual wannabe queen bees.

It would be quite obvious to a blind person they were different as soon as they are unable to do something that others can do, like walk down a street. From what Helen Keller wrote, she knew there was something wrong. As for parents not telling the truth to their children, that happens all of the time for good intentions and bad.

Again, you offer baseless claims, refuse to answer questions and run away from answers given to you. If this is what you think a friend does, it is no wonder you look for attention, even negative.

You are indeed welcome to ask questions. You can make up any excuse why you will not answer any put to you; the reason you do not seems to come down to fear that your claims will be under scrutiny, which they already are.

This is not a discussion. A discussion is the give and take of questions and answers. You have shown that you are not interested in a discussion, but trying to come up with questions you think have no answers, and when faced with an answer, you run around insisting that the answers aren’t “right”. Of course, since you refuse to take responsibility for your claims and answer questions, you have nothing to demonstrate this.

The reason why you are here seems to be that you need attention, even if it is negative and shows the failure of your claims and of your religion. I will ask you more questions: why are you here, MMM? Why do you make false claims repeatedly, thus ignoring your religion’s precepts? I do wonder how you define being a Christian, considering your actions. As it stands, you have shown through your actions that you are a thoroughly unpleasant person, but you serve as a great example of a Christian behaving badly.

Do you REALLY wonder how I define Christianity? Or are you happier with the box you’ve already assigned to me, which allows you to conclude I’m a”Christian behaving badly?”

Isn’t it more fun to just keep assuming you know what I believe and then try to hold me to that standard?

…you don’t have to answer those questions. They’re of the “rhetorical” (perhaps a bit sarcastic) sort, which you will probably label as “lies” that are unsuited for anyone whose blog used the phrase biblical morality somewhere…

Anyway, I already know that you don’t think I’m a good Christian example: lying and being unpleasant and such. Duly noted. 🙂

It seems you haven’t quite figured out how a discussion works yet. Yes, MMM, I do wonder how you define Christianity. I said so. I’ve been asking you to answer questions to support your claims and give us information about yourself for what seems to be forever now, and *you* have refused to answer and seem proud of that rather silly stance. No one has put you in a box, you have done that all on your own by your actions. I’ll ask you again: how do you define Christianity?

Ah, there we go, one more loaded question. It’s a shame that you are so dishonest to need to ask those, MMM. As always, you are welcome to support your claims and tell me what you do believe.

It seems that you may have inadvertently indicated why you refuse to answer qustions and support your claims. “Isn’t it more fun to just keep assuming you know what I believe and then try to hold me to that standard?” Is that it, MMM, are you that afraid of being held to a standard that you would create on your own if you answered questions and supported your claims? That seems to be a possibility because you certainly didn’t want to be shown decisively that you believe morals come from your bible and thus your god. Why are you afraid of being held to a standard, one you can create yourself?

Yep, there we go again with the Christian who wants to ask “rhetorical” questions so she can cast aspersions on someone else and try to avoid responsibility. There is a very good reason you don’t want such questions answered: the answers show your claims to be false.

Hmmm, so MMM, are you saying that the bible and the morality that your god supposedly taught through it has nothing to say about lying? Or that it says lying is a good thing? Since I know what the bible does say about such things, I do find it unsuitable for a Christian to lie, to bear false witness and to make false claims. This is why I would like to know how you would define Christianity. Do your actions speak louder than your words? You mentioned “biblical morality” in relationship to how people should act, those people being Christians. It is curious that you seem to need to distance yourself from your own words. You also said “I’m afraid our distrust of Scripture is causing us to accept crazier and crazier things.” And “I’m afraid because a huge number of people think everything is “fine” since “gay isn’t contagious”–but they’re virtually blind about what’s really at stake.” Another indicator that you think that the bible is the basis of morality, written in your post about how afraid you are of gay people contaminating you. Again, you demonstrate that Christians don’t agree on what their god wants, what “sin” is, etc and do nothing more than create their god in their image.

I had wondered if we’d finally get to more personal attacks and the attempt by you to play martyr, often one of the end game moves of a TrueChristian. That’s quite an article for you to post since your behavior here matches its claims about indirect aggression quite well. We had you start with making false claims about yourself, then proceeding onto making false claims about other people, being unwilling to support your claims, being unwilling to answer questions, making more false claims and directly lying about me, then trying to sidetrack the subject when you were losing, trying to pretend we are friends, and when shown that you are no kind of friend, you now want to claim that everyone who points out your failings is evidently being “mean” to you. Now, MMM, if you want to show how I have done anything discussed in the article, please do so. If you can’t, then you are again throwing shit at a wall and hoping someone assumes you tell the truth or will do your work for you.

I’ve called you out on your actions quite directly. I think you might remember when I pointed out this “. Of course, there are Christians who are decent humane human beings who don’t get off on sadistic fantasies of hell. “ and “Christians who are trying to convert me by using bribes and wasting money that could be used to help people who really need it are twits. Christians who say that I deserve to be tortured for eternity for disagreeing with their beliefs (which not even all Christians agree on) are sadistic (not unloving, please do get it right MMM) twits.” I’ve called you a liar. Not exactly what is meant by indirect aggression, and there certainly isn’t any competition for mates or resources here. Try again.

“What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so?”

I’d ask him how he knows. So, how would you handle that response you postulated? How would you describe red to a blind man? Or would you just ask another question to avoid having to address the response as you have done so far on my blog comments?

why are you sidetracking the discussion you claimed you were so interested in, MMM? You claimed that I was wrong about Ray Comfort and his supposedly planned antics at the Reason Rally but have yet to show that you are correct. Again, it seems you are indeed afraid of having to take responsibility for an answer and you are unwilling to be held to a standard, even one that you create yourself.

This hypothetical blindman would reply, “I know you’re wrong, because other people have told me that red feels like a sunset–which is beautiful. Or red can be a beautiful flower or a set of gorgeous lips… So, SOMEBODY is wrong. Or, maybe you sighted people aren’t actually seeing red at all.”

Since you are not blind, and simply making up claims, MMM, why should anyone care?

Actually there is one really awesome reason. You’ve come up with one of my favorite arguments against the existence of your god or any gods. To paraphrase you:

“I know you’re wrong, because other people have told me that God is wrathful, or God is loving. Or god is all for free will. Or is for slavery. Or god has no problem in the sexual desires of humans, or Or that God hates homosexuals so much that he invented a whole new disease to kill them and anyone else who got caught in the collateral damage. God wants people to kill others who don’t believe, and God wants everyone to live in harmony. God grants magic powers to Christians so they can heal people. God grants magical powers so only Christians can heal Christians. God heals no one because we need to believe solely by faith… So, SOMEBODY is wrong. Or, maybe you believing people aren’t actually seeing God at all.”

You see, MMM, it’s all about evidence. What evidence does the blind man have that red isn’t all of those things since it is indeed all of those things; it’s just a color and what he is getting is the subjective opinions of other humans. The problem is when humans offer the same subjective baseless nonsense about a supposedly omnipotent, omniscient being that supposedly had a direct hand in events that no one can find evidence for, and that they claim is unchanging, and the sole source for objective morality.

I’ve given evidence, MMM. If you recall, I was the one who didn’t depend on subjective claim but gave scientific facts. One’s subjective opinion is not evidence, MMM. We’ve gone over this before and its no more true now than it was when you first tried to make the claim. Now, when humans do fix blindness, and it certainly seems likely considering the links I gave earlier, this blind man’s claim of evidence would be shown to simply false. What you have your blind man saying is nothing more than a variant of the god of the gaps argument.

The only way sight would be considered “magic” is if the person was ignorant about a great many things. The part that would show it not magic is that it can be destroyed or simply absent.

It’s not “evidence” to the blind man! He literally has to take our word for it. He can’t examine a healthy eye for himself. He can’t see his own medical records. You can tell him where red falls on the light spectrum–but he doesn’t even know what light is.

They claim to have abilities he doesn’t. But do you REALLY believe that saying “Red exists–and it’s both angry AND beautiful” is the same as evidence?

You don’t have much respect or knowledge of blind people, do you? You also are evidently ignorant on all of the devices that allow the visually impaired to not have to depend on what others might deign to tell them. So, no, MMM, a blind person doesn’t have to take our word literally. One can know what light is without seeing it, MMM, just how I can know what a neutron star is without seeing it.

As I have indicated, the claim that a color is “angry” and that it is “beautiful” is subjective description. It is evidence of someone’s opinion and that opinion can convey information. The scientific facts I gave are evidence. You have yet to show you have any clue what evidence is since you are unable to produce any to support your claims.

Yes, I have both respect AND knowledge of blind people. I’m willing to bet I’ve known more than you.

I taught special education for years, before my kids were both.

But you’ll have to take my word for it. 😉

No, describing something isn’t evidence.

Telling someone about a neutron star isn’t evidence.

But that’s a great example of the fact that even sighted people have to trust others for things we can’t experience first-hand.

Knowing what light”is” (in technical terms) is not the same as understanding it for yourself… And I would love to be in the room if/when you explained to one of my friends that red is about 650 nanometers. They’d probably wonder (as I did) whether you seriously think you’re offering them evidence.

Because, if they can’t hear, smell, touch, or taste it, you CAN’T give them any evidence.

So, yes, a blind person is entirely dependent on the word of others regarding what light and color are…

Of course you decided to answer a question, MMM. It may be that you’ve finally realized that only asking questions has only shown you to be ignorant.

You may know more blind people than I do. You have shown that you haven’t a clue about them with your baseless claims. Considering your actions before, I have no reason to believe your claims at all. No reason to believe that you have taught special education classes for “years”. It may be true, but the boy has called wolf far too many times to be believed now. I don’t have to take your word for anything. A known liar does not deserve that benefit.

I am not sure what you mean “before your kids were both”. Both what?

Yep, simply telling someone about a neutron star isn’t evidence. Showing spectra, showing gravitational influence on the surroundings, etc is evidence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star) Again, it seems you have to again create a strawman to attack and ignore what I have said. This is no surprise and again, your actions are additional evidence to support the conclusion you cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Humans do trust each other to relate information. They have that trust because they have concrete reasons to do so, that the information is reliable and reflects reality. Often trust is misused and misapplied because people want to trust that everything someone tells them is equally reliable. That is not true of course.

Yes, MMM, knowing what light is is exactly the same as understanding it for yourself. That’s what knowing means. “1) : to perceive directly : have direct cognition of (2) : to have understanding of (3) : to recognize the nature of :” understand: “c : to have thorough or technical acquaintance with or expertness in the practice of” It’s always fun when a TrueChristian goes back to trying to redefine words so their baseless claims have some chance of working.

If your friends are able to understand the basics of science, they would not wonder at all about the information given about the color red at all as science. You have demonstrated that you are ignorant about science, MMM, and it is no surprise that you would wonder about something you did not understand. You can be taught, just as your friends (barring any kind of intellectual disability). Again, your ignorance doesn’t determine what evidence is. You have yet to show any evidence for your claims, so there is no reason to think you known what evidence is at all.

Yes, I can give evidence without depending on hearing, smell, touch or taste. We humans don’t need those to get information, we can create our own instruments to get evidence, and that evidence can be communicated in different ways. One does not need direct exposure to x-rays, to phosgene gas, to fuming nitric acid to know they exist. A blind person can use a photometer to know light exists, and a spectrograph to know that color exists, information given through means that they can use what senses they do have to understand. So your claim that evidence is only received through the senses evolved to receive them is false. However, you are always welcome to support your claims. I’m still waiting.

It was supposed to say “before they were BORN.” Sorry for the typo.
—-

How would you “show” spectra and “show” gravitationally influence of stars to a blind person?

Any physical evidence you can give them would require that they trust you. (As you said, not everyone can be trusted!)

Maybe the trouble is, you’re trying to show that I’m scientifically illiterate and a liar–when this isn’t a scientific issue at all.

It’s about relating to and teaching others about our every day experience. It’s about stepping into another’s shoes and trying to imagine what it would be like to have to trust others even more than most people. It’s about imagining what it would be like to memorize the scientific explanations for rainbows (water, refracted light, etc.) yet still have no idea what that would BE like! They hear about space and stars and shadows, but have no picture of them. All of which a sighted person takes for granted.

My students rely on sighted people to make instruments that turn things most people can see into something they can hear or touch instead.

My deaf students experience sound as a vibration. But hearing is different… somehow… there’s no way to describe what a sound SOUNDS like, without (as you say) correcting the problem and helping the person finally see or hear for themselves.

I’m not sure why you want to turn my observations into personal attacks.

I’m a person, Club. My name is Amanda. I’m married, and we have three children. I like hosting parties and Zumba. And, most importantly, I’m not at war with you. I don’t hate you, so I’m sorry if you got that impression somehow. Maybe I’m reading your posts with the wrong tone. But it’s exhausting to have to sift through the personal attacks get to the main point each time.

Hmmm, MMM, how do you show words to a blind person? Showing isn’t dependent on only vision. How do blind people read instruments? How do blind people navigate their world when some sighted person isn’t around? You seem to think them unable to function unless some one helps them.

Considering your remarks here and on your blog, the vast majority of them show that you are scientifically ignorant and I have already shown that you are a liar. It is a scientific issue because you want to play pretend that no one but a sighted person can get information about the universe, evidence.

MMM, you tried to ask a gotcha question and it failed because you got an answer you can’t counter and now all you are doing is trying to move the goalposts. As it seems, you don’t think your questions through in your need for somehow countering me by bringing up nonsense questions to distract from your failure to counter my post about Ray Comfort and the actions of him and Christians like yourself.

Blind people don’t have to trust others without thought or requests for evidence. Your constant display of ignorance about what blind people do throws doubt on your claims of knowing so many blind people. Yep, people can empathize with others and can step into their shoes. This doesn’t mean that a blind person can’t understand what the color red is. Again, it seems you are only bringing up this topic and then trying to change it since you are a failure when it comes to supporting your claims. Again, you try to move the goalposts and now try to pretend you really were asking about how it would feel, when your initial question was how would describe red to a blind person. Such attempts don’t work when we are in a written medium, and such attempts show that you are not being honest. No one needs a “picture” to know something. I might not know exactly how it is floating in zero g but I can understand it from a description.

Your students are not just blind or deaf if they are in a special education class. They have intellectual disabilities. They may have to rely on sighted people. Intially, any blind person does but that does not require them to always do so and certainly does not require them to trust without reason or ignorantly accept what they are told.

Funny how your claim that only sighted people can make instruments for disabled people to use. A five minute search on Google shows this not to be the case at all, http://www.blindscience.org/supalo . Again, you rely on ignorance to make a point and you fail.

Hearing is sensing a vibration through the auditory canal and it is interpreted in the brain. Sound is always and only a vibration, MMM. This is why it doesn’t go through a vacuum since there is nothing to vibrate. Since we have technology, we can bypass a damaged part of the body and relay the same information to the brain. Your apparent ignorance in this is why I think you are ignorant in the sciences because this is what one would learn in elementary school.

Please do show where I turned your observations into personal attacks. That seems to be one more attempt by you to make a claim and then hope that someone else does your work for you.

Yep, you are a person, Amanda. So? I’m one too. Your marriage, children and interest in Zumba have what to do with what we are talking about? It seems that you are trying to play the martyr card again. You’ve lied about me, Amanda. You’ve acted like a bully on my blog. It is your actions that have shown that you are a thoroughly unpleasant person, and you have chosen to do all that you have done. It is not me who have come up with an impression; it is you who have given it. It’s a common tactic to try to blame the audience when you’ve been a jerk and been called out for it.

Please do show where I have use a personal attack, Amanda. I have certainly shown where you have failed and done that with facts to show that your claims are false. If you want to consider that a personal attack, then reality is a personal attack against you since you have yet to show your claims to be true. Again, it seems that you are creating excuses again to avoid answering questions and supporting your claims.

““What does describing colors to blind people have to do with your initial fascination with my post about Ray Comfort, his attempts to bribe people to take his books and religious nonsense, and his wasting of $25,000 in doing so?”

Or perhaps you might understand my disgust with Comfort if I put it this way “Why do you find it okay for Ray Comfort to waste $25,000 in trying to bribe people to take his books when that $25,000 could be used for a special education program? Why can’t Christians heal these humans who are suffering from such disabilities?

Why yes, some people are born with abilities that others don’t have. No one has said this is not true. This has to do what with your baseless claims and questions, Amanda? You made the claim in your last post that I was making personal attacks. Of course you can’t actually show this to be the case and again demonstrate that you intentionally try to make false claims about me. Considering how your bible says that making false claims is a very bad thing, I wonder why you continue to do it. It would seem that you don’t believe what your bible says at all, or you at least ignore the parts you don’t want to follow. Do you think your god approves of such nonsense? Do you think it doesn’t notice? Either assumption is not what the bible claims.

We have gone from you trying to claim you were a skeptic, to lying and claiming skeptics don’t have to provide evidence, to claiming that it’s just fine to waste $25,000 to get people to take a book and not give it to people who are hungry or who need help with disabilities, to claiming that you can’t heal people like the bible promises because they don’t agree with you, to asking questions if one can describe colors to blind people. When that question was answered, then we have you trying to change the question when your questions are answered, evidently in order to pretend that you have questions that no one can answer. Those questions are of course answered also and you run to another question.

I’ve met plenty of people like you, Amanada. You are terrified of being responsible for what you claim and being held to a standard, even one of your own creation. You rely on ignorance to keep your faith, and you do this by desperately ignoring any questions put to you. Your actions show that Christianity certainly isn’t what it is claimed to be and no, dear, you aren’t holding me up from writing my next post, so that excuse for running away doesn’t work for you either. Running away is your choice. At least take responsibility for that.

I was thinking about this some more and again, we can describe things to other people. No problem there. CAn you describe to me what you see out your bedroom window? Yep. Now, whether its a good description or not can be debated.

You might want to know what a blind person thinks about the descriptions of color he gets:

He has no problem in admitting that what he gets are descriptions of color. They might be contradictory but they are still descriptions. Mine is quite a bit more technical than others but it is still a description. Now, why are you asking me such questions, MMM?

Someone could come in and CLAIM to be John’s wife. But you’d have no way to prove she was telling the truth.

I mean, first you’d need to agree on a definition of “wife.” (Lots of True Christians believe that marriage is a union that only God can make official–regardless of whether someone has or doesn’t have a marriage license.)

But, if we agreed that the government certificate of “wife” is what makes someone married, you’d still have a problem if someone made up a fake certificate.

Or (*gasp*) what if TWO people had marriage certificates with John Branyan’s name written on them. Which was his wife? (Or, if one person was a man, would that be his husband?) I know it’s currently illegal to have more than one wife/husband, but just give us some time to make real progress in this country…

Someday, maybe ALL of us could be John’s wife. Wouldn’t that be great?

Anyway, my point was that you can’t prove a negative. You can’t prove that I’m NOT something. Proof is hard! That’s why I’m really enjoying this conversion to Atheism.

Now I can just demand impossible levels of proof from other people instead of having to provide my own. 🙂

Well, Club, when one realizes that the Bible is full of hyperbole, embellished older myths, and outright lies, it flips a switch in one’s brain. John and his mentor (the mrs.) – unfortunately – refuse to take off their god-goggles. As I suggested to the mrs. on John’s blog, if they want to stay permanently infantilized, it’s up to them I guess.

Until then, they really ought to be prepared for opposition when they spout their willful ignorance on a public forum.

No magical powers needed, JB. One just needs to read what Comfort himself has said.

Now, your bible claims that baptized believers will be able to heal people, drink poison, etc. Since there are no Christians who can do this, it seems that there is either a problem with bible or a problem with your claims of being Christian.

Yep, he has to give away something of value to get them to maybe look at his book. It is hilarious that TrueChristians have to rely on a sandwich to try to convert people. It’s like watching churches have bouncy castles and parties to convince anyone to pay them any attention at all. Such lovely desperation.

me going and actually staying overnight is part of my 50th birthday present to myself. we’re staying at a hotel that’s part of the Kimpton group. https://www.kimptonhotels.com/ they are pet friendly and don’t place “holy” books in rooms. If you want one, you can get one at the front desk.

I go to church with a bunch of TrueChristians who are so desperate for attention that they’ve built an orphanage in Zimbabwe that feeds and provides medicine to 18,000 kids! Naturally, then, they preach all that junk about God’s love to the gullible heathen.

Really? So then you can of course provide the evidence for this claim, yes? I am waiting for it.

That’s quite an orphanage, with 18,000 children in it. One would think that many people would have heard of it, especially in other countries in Africa. I will ask my friend Mak if he has heard of this amazing humanitarian project.

But it’s far worse! This is just the tip of the TrueChristian desperation iceberg!

Compassion International has almost 2 million children that they ‘release from poverty’…IN JESUS NAME! Bahahaha! As you know, Jesus didn’t even EXIST! These horrible people provide care for children in the name of a mythical character!

Samaritan’s Purse has their desperate tendrils into countries all over the world. They base their humanitarian efforts on Luke 10! Shameless attention whores!

HEY! I have an idea! You guys at the Reason Rally should use some of the donation money to go release these poor people from the tyranny of religion!

I’m asking for evidence, not a PR claim from a church website. Where does it say that this organization is supporting 18,000 children, JB? It does say “1.Twenty-seven schools, where over 17,000 students receive a top-notch education that includes Bible-based, Christ-centered curriculum.” Which, if rounded up to 18000, would mean that there is over 600 student at each school. Again, this should be known by many. Where is the independent evidence?

Please do show that Jesus did exist, JB. Surely you can, right? You’ve been asked for evidence before and unsurprisingly, you won’t offer it.

Samaritan’s Purse does their best to convert the people that they help, exactly as your church does. This is not help given freely. And I agree with you JB, they are horrible people who require belief in a false god to receive help. Thank you so much for agreeing with me.

Atheists are already donating money to help people and not demand that these people be atheists or theists. Your recommendation is a good one but is already being done.

Thank you again for agreeing with me and showing that Ray Comfort is demonstrating that the Christian god does not exist. However, if you do want to show that my conclusion is wrong, you are always welcome to do so.

Thanks for ignoring my points, JB. No one said that Christians didn’t help people. It’s always good to see that you must try lie again.

I mock Ray comfort and TrueChrsitians who must try to bribe people in order to get people to read their false claims. If Ray’s claims are so wonderful, why the bribe, JB?

I mock TrueChristians who spend $25,000 to show off when they could actually help people with it. Yep, $25,000 to the Subway company to feed people who were able to come to a rally *and* try to get them to take a book, rather than $25,000 to help folks who have nothing. It’s quite like those TrueChristians who claim it is “charity” to build themselves a new building with a nifty sound system in it.

That’s a wonderful rationalization, JB. Can you support it? I do advise you to see what Comfort has said about the subject. Like many Christians, he wants to pretend that there is a fire and he will save us from it. However, he can’t show that there is a fire. He also shows that he ignores some of the few good bits in the bible.

It is nice that you do agree that it is a bribe e.g. “money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust” merriam-webster.com

So much for the ability of the message and the god to convert on its own.

It seems that the bible itself might question Comfort’s actions:

““Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.” Exodus 23 and Deut 16

Hmmm, what Christian convictions are those, JB? Funny how Ray has no idea what his bible says. He’s quite like you. There is quite a bit of criticism of my own, and I don’t need religion to show that Ray Comfort is a man who needs to bribe people. I know that bribing people is silly, especially to get them to convert to a religion that has no evidence for its claims at all. It is trying to use money to change peoples’ minds. One would think that the message itself could do that.

Again, JB, do you pay people to come to your shows? It is unsurprising that you will not answer this question. JB, do you hand out a $5 gift card to those who come to your shows?

Yes, JB, thanks for supporting my point that it is curious that Ray Comfort has to pay people in order to try to get them to read his book.

You do the same thing as Ray Comfort and Franklin Graham? This would indicate that you make up false claims about bananas being created by a god to fit human hands, when the truth is that bananas have been altered by humans into their current qualities and claim that the followers of other religions are not as good as you are. It would also indicate that you are not charitable because it is the benevolent thing to do, but do it to try to get people to agree to you.

1) Club thinks Ray Comfort is paying people to read his book.
2) JB admits that people pay to see him perform.
3) JB’s actions support Club’s thesis.

I don’t believe this is strong enough thinking to require a refutation.

I didn’t say I “do the same thing” as Ray Comfort and Franklin Graham. I said I do the same KINDS of things. Apparently you thought I meant that I do EXACTLY what both Ray and Franklin do. Sorry. Didn’t mean to talk over your head.

Again, thanks for showing that misrepresenting what I’ve written is nothing new for a TrueChristian.

Ray Comfort is paying people to read his book by his attempt to bribe them with food to take a book. This is a fact.

JB doesn’t do this, he has people pay him to experience his offerings. He may donate to worthy causes.

Ray Comfort is not donating to a worthy cause.

Now, if the story he tells is so important, then one would think that he would either not need to pay people to read his book or people would pay him to read his book.

So, you do the same kinds of things, like Graham and Comfort, like these things: ” make up false claims about bananas being created by a god to fit human hands, when the truth is that bananas have been altered by humans into their current qualities and claim that the followers of other religions are not as good as you are. It would also indicate that you are not charitable because it is the benevolent thing to do, but do it to try to get people to agree to you. ” Better now? It still means the same thing.

I pointed out many times why wasting money on trying to get people to pick up a book with a food bribe is not worthy, JB. That money could be used to help people who really need it, not folks who are hanging out at the rally. Even your bible says that bribes are unworthy.

Now, please do tell us what is worthy about spending $25,000 in trying to get people to read a book that they already know is nonsense and is full of documented lies. What about this act by Ray Comfort would JC appreciate?

Your question about Christian activities is not a rhetorical question. You only want it to be perceived that way so you don’t get the answer that will show your claims about me to be more lies. Of course there are activities that Christians do that are good. Plenty of them are charitable and don’t require their religion to be forced on anyone, following what the bible says. Take for example those charities that were given to you since you said you’d donate to them. Oxfam has people from all over the world, of all religions and none, that donate to them. It’s charity, not self-aggrandizement by a man who is only giving away food to get attention. People traveled to earthquake stricken areas to help and heal the people and nothing was held hostage. Organizations like Heifer International (started as Christian but is now secular) don’t require anyone to believe a certain way to get a animal to help them improve their lives (this is my spouse’s favorite charity).

Thanks for lying again, JB. You’ve made up nonsense that I somehow find someone hungry being fed being despicable. I never said that or implied it. Such false witnessing. My point through this is that Comfort is not feeding the hungry. He could do that by donating his $25,000 to a food pantry. He could also heal folks up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center if we could believe the claims of the bible. We have no evidence of charity in his actions.

Again, JB, would JC approve of a man who decided to require people take books to get a gift card and who shouts his faith all over the place, when JC said that one should be quiet in ones faith and ones charity? You may want to read your bible to see what is said about such activities.

The point is that you can reject any evidence offered. You can also claim contradiction on any subject. It doesn’t make for stimulating conversation. Neither does it make you an intellectual.

Initially, you referenced Mak as evidence that the mission didn’t even exist. Now, apparently, you’ve abandoned that argument and have taken to describing the nature of the mission “depend[ing] on the needs of people to get them to obey their religion.”

So suddenly you are an authority on an organization that early today you didn’t believe existed.

Considering that I have not simply rejected evidence offered and have demonstrated the contradictions of your claims, it does make for stimulating conversation and it does make me an intellectual.

JB, I’m still waiting for your evidence.

You have claimed that there was an orphanage that took care of 18,000 children. I questioned that and the website of the mission shows that your claim was false. Attempts to misrepresent what I have said are cute but fail since this is a written medium.

I said 18,000 which is clearly false as the website only says 17,000! Apologies for misleading you.

I’m going to go ahead and admit that the website is lying too. There aren’t EXACTLY 17,000 children in the mission program. It’s an unstable number that changes on an almost daily basis. Instead of posting an exact count on the website, the mission posts an estimate.

And you DID, in fact, simply reject the evidence when you said, “I’m asking for evidence, not a PR claim from a church website…Where is the independent evidence?” You also referenced your friend ‘Mak’ as an authority who confirmed that I wasn’t telling the truth.

So here we are! I’m having to explain the concept of estimating numbers to you even though, I suspect, you are already familiar with how populations are often described.

If this is what you’d call stimulating, intellectual conversation then we are a couple of geniuses!

No, JB, I am not upset about the 17,000 number. I am pointing out that you claimed that there was an orphanage that took care of 18,000 people when that is not what the mission website states at all. Rather than a simple cut and paste, you decided to exaggerate the claim and try to present the mission as taking care of 18,000 orphans, rather than saying that these kids were being educated in schools. This is a admirable action by Christians, and it would be more admirable if they were taught without the indoctrination.

I still do not believe that this is the truth. It may be close but as I know from your very own actions, there is no reason to trust what a Christian says above anyone else. You did not estimate, you exaggerated. You could have done a simple cut and paste but you chose not to do so.

But the sandwiches, Carmen. That’s what we’re talking about here. The sinister use of sandwiches… Thankfully, there will be insightful people like you and Club at the Reason Rally who see exactly what’s going on.

Oh, and just so everyone knows, the homophobic, anti-Muslim Franklin Graham is the CEO of the Samaritan’s Purse organization. It must be quite taxing, as he receives about $650,000 per year for that position (he has another, which brings in about $230,000). Not too shabby, eh? You can read all the criticism about Samaritan’s Purse online.

Bottom line for their ‘humanitarian efforts’? Evangelizing ‘souls for Je$u$’.

No doubt you have complete knowledge about Franklin Graham’s personal finances as you’re not the kind of person to make unsubstantiated claims. I tried using my friend, ‘Google’ but I wasn’t able to get specific information about how Franklin uses his income.

I wasn’t able to find references to any humanitarian efforts based specifically on the atheist cause. There are numerous charities that don’t mention religion in their mission statement but that doesn’t mean they’re functioning as atheists. Do you know of any such organizations? If you do, how much is the CEO’s salary and how does he/she use that salary?

Well, let’s say Ray Comfort’s intelligence is questionable (in my opinion) and leave it at that. The POINT, John (as you seem to keep missing – that willful ignorance again) is that Franklin Graham is making a $hitload of money from his blatant evangelizing of underprivileged children . . .err. . ‘humanitarian efforts’.

You conveniently ducked the topic of FG’s homophobia and Islamophobia; why is that, John? Does that signal tacit approval?

Let’s see, John. We support many charities. Just yesterday, for instance, I printed off receipts to two: The Earth Rangers (a Kids’ Conservation Organization – our grandson wants to help the white-nosed bats) and Blue Sea Philanthropy (support for the Coldest Night of Year )- “to serve the hungry, homeless and hurting communities across Canada”. Then there’s Doctors Without Borders, and we are currently involved with a fundraiser to bring two Syrian families to this area. (that organization involves people ‘churched and unchurched’)
For year though, John, we gave to our church and not too many others because we truly believed that the church dispersed it to worthy causes. In this area, however, the ‘worthy cause’ is usually the church building, which takes every cent of their pew-sitters’ dollars to maintain the structure. It became increasingly clear to us that that’s not charity. I still believe in Outreach, however, and we still support those activities within the church.
(It’s ok to call me a hypocrite; I’ve been called worse)

John, please don’t make me out to be anything but a person who feels that civic responsibility is important; whenever possible, we pick charities close to home. 🙂 So if it happens to be a homeless shelter that the local churches support, we look at the bottom line of who it helps. . . right now, for instance, we are on the lookout for a benefit for the people in Alberta – many have lost their homes in a huge fire which is still raging; I am reluctant to give to the ‘leading charity’ as that organization has a huge overhead expense; hubby heard on CBC the other day that money sent directly to the Food Bank in Edmonton would be a better use of donations. There will be local fundraisers here, as many of our young women and men go out to Fort McMurray to work.
Sorry, Club, for derailing your topic – I’ll get back to my housework now!

IT’s not derailing at all. It is a good discussion on what charity really is and underlines that Ray Comfort’s bribe is not charity. It is an attempt to get people to read a book that the vast majority of them know is garbage.

He tried to give away his DVD about abortion last rally and his sad little tracts that he attempts to make look like money. That didn’t work so well, so he apparently feels the need to buy people’s attention with food this time.

Again, it’s a pity that he has chosen to do this rather than donate $25,000 to a charity that helps people. His promised magic powers would be able to handle the food for rally attendees or he could go up to Walter Reed AMC and heal the folks who were hurt.

Now, let’s watch JB whine about the sandwiches again in his desperate attempt to ignore the actions of his fellow Christians.

I think he does give money to those who need it. Unfortunately, he can’t admit that people who don’ agree with him are just as humane and decent as he might be. He does say his audience, aka those who pay him money, are stupid. That is an attitude that is common among most employees, but most curious from someone who depends on his audience agreeing with him.

Thanks for the link to the Charity Navigator’s information about Samaritan’s Purse. It shows there that Mr. Graham’s compensation is $629,819.00 as of their 990 form for 2014 (the last reported).

This is his salary, JB. It’s not too hard to know that he lives in a mansion, wears thousand dollar suits, etc.

FFRF has a humanitarian arm. The Foundation Beyond Belief is a humanitarian organization https://foundationbeyondbelief.org/ . And as Carmen has pointed out, atheism is only about the conclusion that there is no god, and atheists support humanitarian oganizations all over the world. I personally support Oxfam among other organizations.

You’ve done a great job at undercutting your own claim that religion equals charity.

I’m glad that you do agree that Ray Comfort is an idiot. Funny how you cannot support your claims, JB. But that’s always been the case.

That’s the thing I’ve found most enlightening, Club. That most Christians are terribly ignorant about their own religion/Bible. Most of them don’t seem to realize that non-believers know the Bible very well; in fact, that’s why many of us AREN’T believers. We have read enough to realize that man made god(s); not the other way ’round.
It’s a Bronze/Iron Age myth- it has human handprints all over it, mrsmcmommy. That’s IT.

Carmen, the reality is even more amusing than that. I’ve heard a rather sizable portion of Seminary Students end up failing out because they become non believers after close examination of the source material.

A very common theme, Doug; the one about seminary students. Plus, I’m sure you’ve read as many atheist blogs as I have – the #1 reason for deconversion? Education. Something I read a few years ago goes like this: Internet: Where religion goes to die. That’s what happened to me. . . but for some the delusion of an imaginary friend is extremely comforting.

Though there is one weird blip on that. Adherence to belief goes down with education level, until Junior Year of College when it increases in every field except the hard sciences. I have a theory for that, but it is a very jaded one: People realize outside the college bubble they need to say they are religious in order to get ahead in their career.

The point is clear: Ray Comfort is doing plain old salesman techniques, not the magical promises of the Bible. So right there we see the Bible is a unreliable source of information. When your lynchpin of the reason Christians believe in God is shown to be unreliable, then it isn’t good evidence. Then apply Occam’s razor. No “Describe Color to a Blind Man” or other bizarre obfuscations will change that point: if the Bible is wrong, the only source of information on this Yahweh, then you cannot separate it from fiction, and no…just the fact that it has some actual places and names no more helps it to distinguish it from fiction than the fact New York exists separates Spiderman from fiction.

And McMommy likes to play the obfuscation game, obviously so. People with actual evidence to support their point DO NOT PLAY THESE GAMES. all of her abracadabra, playing with definitions, outright lies of “I’m a skeptic now” and refusing to understand and avoiding the simple idea “positive claims require positive evidence”

Please forgive me. I’m the one who wrote the first comment, that Comfort was creepy. I’ve been getting notifications every time someone comments on this post. I must say, the Christians sound pretty angry. Not very loving. Not very, “Have you heard the good news?” Now, didn’t Jesus say something about you will know them by their fruits? I wonder what these comments say about the Christians that posted them. I wonder what these comments say about the God these Christians worship.

You may ask how much it costs to get a permit. “The permit systems helps assure that the large amount of events that may be taking place on any given day will not conflict with each other and with general visitor activities. All application, unless determined to be a First Amendment activity, must be accompanied by a payment for initial processing. The application processing cost is

•$120 for public gathering/ special event applications
•$90 for special use applications.

The application processing cost represents the average costs incurred by the park in mailing, distribution and initial review of applications to make sure the information supplied is sufficient to inform a decision. Payment of application cost may be in the form of check, money order or credit card.” https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/permitsandreservations.htm

that’s very appropriate. He’s such a hapless idiot, and unfortunately like Clouseau, he harms people in his way. It shows how much he was interested in this nonsense when it was shown he’d have to behave and he found a $120 excuse to call the nonsense off.

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